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growth that has exceeded all expectations.
'We have also delivered on the mandate that we were handed by the referendum result.'
'Britain is leaving the European Union and there can be no turning back. And as we look to the future, the Government has the right plan for negotiating our new relationship with Europe.
'We want a deep and special partnership between a strong and successful European Union and a United Kingdom that is free to chart its own way in the world.
'That means we will regain control of our own money, our own laws and our own borders and we will be free to strike trade deals with old friends and new partners all around the world.
'This is the right approach, and it is in the national interest. But the other political parties oppose it.
'At this moment of enormous national significance there should be unity here in Westminster, but instead there is division.
'The country is coming together, but Westminster is not.
'In recent weeks Labour has threatened to vote against the deal we reach with the European Union.
'The Liberal Democrats have said they want to grind the business of government to a standsill.
'The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain's membership of the European Union.
'And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.
'Our opponents believe that because the Government's majority is so small, our resolve will weaken and that they can force us to change course.
Theresa May hit out at Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party for threatening to vote against a Brexit deal
'They are wrong.
'They under-estimate our determination to get the job done and I am not prepared to let them endanger the security of millions of working people across the country.
'Because what they are doing jeopardises the work we must do to prepare for Brexit at home and it weakens the Government's negotiating position in Europe.
'If we do not hold a general election now their political game-playing will continue, and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election.
'Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country.
'So we need a general election and we need one now, because we have at this moment a one-off chance to get this done while the European Union agrees its negotiating position and before the detailed talks begin.
'I have only recently and reluctantly come to this conclusion.
'Since I became Prime Minister I have said that there should be no election until 2020, but now I have concluded that the only way to guarantee certainty and stability for the years ahead is to hold this election and seek your support for the decisions I must take.
'And so tomorrow I will move a motion in the House of Commons calling for a general election to be held on the eighth of June.
'That motion, as set out by the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, will require a two-thirds majority of the House of Commons.
'So I have a simple challenge to the opposition parties, you have criticised the Government's vision for Brexit, you have challenged our objectives, you have threatened to block the legislation we put before Parliament.
'This is your moment to show you mean it, to show you are not opposing the Government for the sake of it, to show that you do not treat politics as a game.
The PM also criticised the Scottish National Party led by Nicola Sturgeon (pictured in Edinburgh today) for saying they will vote against legislation that formally repeals Britain's membership of the European Union
'Let us tomorrow vote for an election, let us put forward our plans for Brexit and our alternative programmes for government and then let the people decide.
'And the decision facing the country will be all about leadership. It will be a choice between strong and stable leadership in the national interest, with me as your Prime Minister, or weak and unstable coalition government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, propped up by the Liberal Democrats - who want to reopen the divisions of the referendum - and Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.
'Every vote for the Conservatives will make it harder for opposition politicians who want to stop me from getting the job done.
'Every vote for the Conservatives will make me stronger when I negotiate for Britain with the prime ministers, presidents and chancellors of the European Union.
'Every vote for the Conservatives means we can stick to our plan for a stronger Britain and take the right long-term decisions for a more secure future.
'It was with reluctance that I decided the country needs this election, but it is with strong conviction that I say it is necessary to secure the strong and stable leadership the country needs to see us | 3,540,600 |
Unbridled and unfettered Capitalism as personified in the various Chambers of Commerce embedded throughout America is just as deadly as the most poisonous Leftist ideology pushed within Jewish-dominated universities and think-tanks.
It works differently than Bolshevism, but when all is tallied, we see the same outcome thanks to the cold and soulless greed that lies at the heart of any philosophy that puts money and profit above human dignity and well-being.
Because with organizations like the Chamber, the easiest and quickest increase in Net GDP (not to be confused with Per Capita GDP) is always the chief goal.
And what better way to achieve such growth than through mass immigration and the subsequent rabbit-like birth rate of those new primitives?
You can theoretically keep the house of cards upright long after Per Capita GDP begins to decline due to squalor and Third-World living conditions (just keep numbers increasing at a faster pace), and with these pure materialists, there usually isn’t much thought put into future generations and their inheritance – to hell with them for I will be dead and buried is the general mindset.
Breitbart:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has posted two billboards in front of the White House which declare America was built by foreign ‘Dreamers,’ not by native-born Americans, who apparently have no place in the billboards or in America’s society.
“It is absolutely an insult to Americans, but the Chamber knows that, which is why this isn’t a broad-based campaign” conducted outside Washington D.C., said Mark Krikorian, director at the Center for Immigration Studies. He continued: “The implicit message is that immigrants are better than Americans, that Americans are the supporting players, and the immigrants are the stars. It really is kind of the idea that immigrants are somehow magical people, not normal humans with all the strengths and weaknesses and foibles of regulaar people, that they are somehow magical…
It’s not really that, to be honest.
All they’re really saying is that White Americans have no real value other than the shekels in their pockets, and the shekels they spend when out shopping.
It’s really a transfer of Jewish Talmudic teachings into the upper middle and wealthy classes – we’re just cattle meant to bring profit to our masters.
Don’t American kids have dreams? [Silicon valley creators] David Packard and Bill Hewlett were not immigrants. Bill Gates wasn’t an immigrant. Tom Watson [founder] of IBM wasn’t an immigrant. Obviously immigration is an important part of America’s story, but it is just one part.” America is not a “nation of immigrants,” Krikorian said, it is “a nation which includes immigrants.” The Chamber’s use of ‘dreamers’ to refer to migrants, and the deliberate erasure of 290 million Americans from their own nation and history was posted as business leaders arrived in town November 15 to demand that Congress provide a no-strings amnesty for at least 3 million illegal immigrants, plus million of their foreign relatives, no matter the financial and civic cost to American families and American voters. The business groups are demanding the extra immigrant workers and employers, even though new data shows that the migrants dubbed ‘dreamers’ by Democrats have college graduation rates that are one-tenth of similar-aged Americans’ college graduation rate. However, any infusion of new immigrants provides Chamber companies with millions of extra workers to lower wages rates. The immigrants also serve the Chamber as millions of government-dependent customers. For example, Breitbart News estimated that an amnesty for 3 million ‘dreamers’ would require taxpayers to provide $115 billion subsidies via Obamacare to myriad health-care companies. In practice, the taxpayers’ costs will be far higher because new immigrants can use the nation’s chain-migration law to being in many of their foreign relatives, regardless of their skills, ideology, age or health. For example, the National Academy of Sciences reported in September 2016 that legal and illegal immigrants cost state and local taxpayers $57 billion per year, not counting huge additional federal costs. The same report shows that immigration forces down Americans’ wages down by 5.2 percent, and annually transfers $500 billion in payroll up to employers and investors. That is all gravy to business groups, which gain from a larger population and national economy, especially if there is no growth in employees’ per-capita salaries.
Just as I said up at the top of this article – they don’t care if you die in the streets so long as there are replacement bodies lined up behind you.
… The billboard was endorsed by the FWD.us group of investors, whose founders include Facebook’s | 3,540,601 |
This article is more than 10 months old
This article is more than 10 months old
Missouri health officials’ efforts to shut down the last abortion clinic within state borders are “a denial of basic healthcare services”, the New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said at a House oversight committee hearing on Thursday.
Missouri took “extreme actions” to limit reproductive rights, the panel heard. Tactics included tracking patients’ periods and medically unnecessary pelvic exams, amounting to “state-sponsored abuse”, Maloney said.
Family planning schemes must offer options other than abortion, says US Read more
“I cannot begin to describe my disgust at these violations of privacy and breaches of trust by government officials,” said Maloney. “Sadly, Missouri’s actions are not taking place in isolation. Other states have pushed for similar restrictions.”
Six US states have only one abortion clinic.
Starting last summer, Missouri’s health department ramped up administrative efforts to close a Planned Parenthood facility in St Louis. The state demanded interviews with physician interns at the clinic, and forced the facility to perform medically unnecessary pelvic exams.
Ultimately, the state denied the clinic its operating license. Clinic officials appealed to an administrative hearing court in Missouri.
There, the “pro-life” head of the health department, Randall Williams, revealed investigators made a spreadsheet including patients’ last known periods, in an effort to find incomplete procedures.
“Our primary goal has always been trying to keep these doors open,” Dr Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of the St Louis Planned Parenthood, said before her congressional testimony.
Requirements to perform unnecessary pelvic exams, in which doctors insert fingers into the vagina, “are asking us to violate medical ethics”, McNicholas said. “There has to be a line somewhere and this is the line.”
The state dropped the requirement that physicians perform additional pelvic exams after public outcry. In May, the health department told a conservative news site the medically unnecessary pelvic exam “heightens the safety of abortions”.
They do not, said the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, calling the procedures “unwarranted, invasive and not supported by medical evidence”.
Republicans’ sole witness at the hearing was Allie Beth Stuckey, a podcaster and host at the conservative outlet Blaze TV. Stuckey has argued in the past that the issue of abortion is a “spiritual battle”, and there is “not a single good argument” for the procedure.
“There could be some very sophisticated academic arguments out there that I haven’t heard,” Stuckey said in a July episode of her podcast. “Now, I obviously would not find them persuasive, but maybe I would find them somewhat logical.”
Last summer, a slew of states including Missouri attempted to ban abortion before most women even know they are pregnant. The bans are patently unconstitutional and have been blocked in court. Abortion remains legal in all 50 US states.
Maloney said she believed “these states have been emboldened by the Trump administration’s systemic attacks on reproductive healthcare and general disrespect for women”. Since Donald Trump has taken office, his administration has systematically sought to restrict access to birth control and abortion.
The administration also sought to limit international aid for sexual health services including abortion, and has worked to have the phrase “sexual and reproductive health” removed from multiple UN agreements.
Since the US supreme court case Planned Parenthood v Casey in 1992, which found grounds for states to restrict abortions, states have worked to limit women’s access to abortion through so-called Trap laws, or “targeted regulation of abortion providers”.
In Missouri, women face expensive and time-consuming hurdles to obtain an abortion, thanks to state lawmakers’ efforts to “chip away” at access using this strategy. A woman who wants an abortion in Missouri must receive state-mandated counseling meant to deter her, then wait 72 hours between her first visit to a clinic and the time she can have an abortion.
Women cannot use private health insurance to pay for their abortion, nor can they use public insurance. Nor can women obtain an abortion if their stated reason is a genetic abnormality.
However, those are only legislative efforts to stop women from obtaining abortions. McNicholas said Missouri’s recent efforts represent a new front in state abortion deterrence: using the licensing process to end access.
“Although that was the strategy for the last 10 years or so in the midwest and the south, we have seen a much bolder approach,” said McNicholas. “The other piece is through the health department.” | 3,540,602 |
After you collect your cans, bottles and paper, then put them out by the curb, do you ever think about where everything goes after the truck picks things up? Largely, it goes to China.
Every day, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of recyclables leave US ports bound for China. China sends the US toys, clothes and electronics; in return, some of America’s largest exports back are paper, plastic and aluminum.
But that equation is changing as of Jan. 1 — China is enforcing its new “National Sword” policy, which bans 24 types of solid waste, including various plastics and unsorted mixed papers, and sets a much tougher standard for contamination levels.
China notified the World Trade Organization about the ban in July, essentially saying the country would no longer act as the world’s trash dump. Currently, China consumes 55 percent of the world’s scrap paper and is a major destination for other recyclables.
The National Sword policy follows China’s “Green Fence,” a 10-month policy the country enacted five years ago, which set initial standards for lower contamination levels for recycling.
The ban will undoubtedly hurt recycling operators in China that rely on the import of raw materials. But delivering a cleaner China is paramount for Communist Party politicians.
The National Sword is also already being felt throughout the US. About a 45-minute drive west of Boston in the city of Westborough, Massachusetts, bales of paper are stacking up in a parking lot.
“We’re looking at 150 to 200 tractor trailer loads of paper. It’s stacked approximately 12 feet high, and it goes for quite a distance,” says Ben Harvey, president of E.L. Harvey & Sons, a family-run business since 1911.
To be clear: This situation is not normal.
“No, our business is to bring it in, process it and move it out as quickly as we can,” says Harvey.
Workers manually sort trash from recycling at E.L. Harvey & Sons. Approximately 15 percent of the recycling that’s collected here is unusable trash. Credit: Jason Margolis/PRI
Harvey can’t sell the 2,000-pound bales to China because the contamination levels — the trash that’s accidentally mixed in, something like the remnants of a greasy pizza box that gets thrown in with the recycling — almost certainly exceed China’s rigorous new standards. If he had continued putting bales on ships a few weeks ago, they wouldn't have reached China until the ban would've already been in effect on Jan. 1.
Harvey is hoping that China and the US can work out a deal or he can find other processing mills in Vietnam or Thailand. Selling the material in the US simply isn’t an option.
“Because everything was going offshore, the mills have been slow to develop in the United States to handle this material,” Harvey says. “With the tightness in the marketplace, there might be mills that will be built, but that takes four to five to six years to put in a mill that will handle the capacity that we’re currently looking at.”
In the meantime, he’s growing increasingly concerned as the bales of paper take over more and more of his parking lot.
“If this stuff doesn’t move, and we don’t know what to do with it, we can’t keep it forever," he says. "At some point, it’s going to start to degrade. The other thing that could happen is that if we can’t find outlets — and I’m not talking about just E.L. Harvey & Sons, I’m talking about the industry as a whole — we’re going to stop bringing material into our facilities. And that’s going to impact recycling programs throughout the country.”
In other words, trucks could stop collecting our curbside recycling.
“This is not a little disruption,” says Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute, a research organization based in Southern California. “This is a big disruption to a bigger industry than most people would think it is, because it’s sort of an invisible process. You put your stuff out at the curb, and it goes away — nobody thinks about it as being a multibillion industry in this country.”
Collins says China’s crackdown presents something between a challenge and a crisis for US recyclers.
“We’ve already put things on ships that may be coming back,” says Collins. “The US recycling industry has asked for some relaxation of the rules, but there are ongoing negotiations right now in | 3,540,603 |
An Ottawa taxi driver disrupted city council with a noisy exit after councillors voted to legalize Uber — and app-based ride-hailing services like it — under a new licensing category that will come into effect this fall.
"Think of what the hell you're doing, all of you," shouted taxi plate owner Tony Hajjar, calling Uber a "criminal organization" he likened to cigarette smugglers.
"These are families you're breaking up here," he said, referring to the city's 2,000 taxi drivers. "These people are your taxpayers. There are going to be a lot of homes going up for sale."
The changes, which also include a reduction in licencing fees for traditional taxi drivers, will come into effect on Sept. 30 — but Uber Canada has indicated it will continue to operate illegally until then with an effort to meet city requirements before that date.
"We look forward to working with the city to come into compliance as the bylaw comes into effect," said Uber Canada's Ian Black after the vote, adding that the company is following the rules in 70 cities across the world where it has been regulated.
Ottawa has issued nearly 200 fines to Uber drivers since the company launched in Ottawa in October 2014 — and acting deputy city manager Susan Jones said that bylaw officers will continue to enforce the current rules until the new ones take effect.
Ottawa taxi plate owner Tony Hajjar called Uber a "criminal organization" as he stormed out of a council meeting after councillors voted to legalize app-based ride-hailing services, like Uber. 1:05
Some councillors scolded Uber for skirting the rules for the past 18 months and described the new rules as imperfect — even as they voted in favour of legalization. Eli El-Chantiry was the only councillor to dissent.
Coun. Keith Egli called on Uber to "do better" moving forward.
Coun. David Chernushenko warned, "We will be watching very carefully" to make sure Uber and its drivers follow rules created by the city.
"I do not like the way this came about," he said.
Mayor Jim Watson also denounced Uber's "bull-in-a-china-shop method," but added that the company forced the city to adapt to the new reality more quickly.
"The number of people that were contacting me and contacting members of council was in the hundreds if not thousands that said, 'We want cheaper service, we want more reliable service, we don't want to be carrying cash around," he said.
Cameras not required
Uber drivers and app-based ride-hailing services will not be required to have cameras in vehicles under the new law — a main sticking point for the Ottawa taxi industry — but the question will be reviewed in one year when data on the issue is available.
Dire predictions of doom and gloom will not come to pass. - Coun. Diane Deans
In a close 13-11 vote, council voted that all vehicles for hire will be required to have a minimum $2 million in liability insurance, down from the minimum $5 million initially proposed by city staff. Taxis are currently only required by the city to have $2 million in liability insurance but the Ottawa taxi industry has voluntarily increased its coverage to $5 million.
Coun. Scott Moffatt, who introduced the motion, argued that $2 million — the same amount being proposed in a parallel bylaw review in the City of Toronto — is sufficient and helps "both sides."
Other changes include:
Eliminating the $1.50 service fee for customers paying with credit and debit in taxis.
Eliminating the $820 Algonquin College taxi course for drivers.
Reducing the taxi licence fee by 40 per cent, and eliminating it altogether for drivers of accessible taxis.
Maintain the exclusive right for taxis to accept street hails and use taxi lanes.
Allowing taxi drivers to offer reduced fares, but only when pre-arranged through an app. The city will not regulate Uber's pricing.
Vehicles in both licensing categories can be a maximum of 10 years old.
Coun. Diane Deans, who heads the committee that reviewed the bylaw changes proposed by city staff last week, repeated at the outset of the debate that Ottawa is "taking the handcuffs off the taxi industry" with its new set of rules — even though the taxi industry has suggested it could lead to its extinction.
"The taxi business will remain lucrative," Deans said. "Dire predictions of doom and gloom will not come to pass."
Camera issue to be reviewed in 1 year
The taxi industry had been pushing for Uber and services like it to join them in having security cameras in vehicles, which has been a public safety requirement for cabs in Ottawa since 2008.
City staff had recommended that the new licensing category be exempt from having security cameras | 3,540,604 |
by
Framing the Democratic Party’s presidential contest are two popular candidates, Bernie Sanders on the progressive-left and Joe Biden on the center-right. In between sit candidates who seek support from both left and right, attempting to successfully bridge the current divide. One of these straddlers – Elizabeth Warren — is rising fast and now appears to be emerging as the candidate to beat for the nomination.
Warren is complex, everything about her is connected to everything else. The specific facts about her life and politics can best be understood in relation to the general facts. A close examination of her political history and her evolving policy positions is therefore highly relevant.
Warren’s History
In her official campaign literature, Elizabeth Warren states that she is the daughter of a janitor, growing up “on the ragged edge of the middle class in Oklahoma.” Warren shuns using the term “class” except when combined with the term “middle.”
Warren moved away from Oklahoma at 19 years old and has never resided there again. She finds it politically useful to stress her origins in this heartland state, but conveniently leaves out more relevant facts. One such fact is that she was a hardline conservative for a majority of her life, and a Republican Party member until she was 47 years old. She has stated that she used to believe that working class people who filed for bankruptcy were “cheaters,” not understanding that the key fact was that they were poorly paid by the owners of capital. She was a professor in Texas and Pennsylvania where being a Republican was suitable, but when she was hired at the liberal Harvard University, she suddenly became a Democrat. She explained the switch by stating that “I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets.” In July 2018 she stated to the New England Council, a regional business lobbying organization, that she is “a capitalist to my bones.”
While such statements help establish her bonafides among the centrist sector of the Democratic Party, they are contradictory to and raise serious questions about the sincerity of her newly found progressive-left policy positions. Also worth noting is that when Donald Trump announced that “we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country’’ in his State of the Union address February 5, 2019, Elizabeth Warren joined the Republicans in giving the president a standing ovation. More recently, Warren contrasted herself to Bernie Sanders, stating that “he’s a socialist and I believe in markets,” later adding that “I love markets.” In fact, Warren’s entire career can be viewed as a long and largely hopeless project to try and make capitalist markets work for rank and file people, failing to understand that capitalism works well mainly for the wealthy. The result of markets in command has been, as Evo Morales, the indigenous leader of Bolivia, recently stated at the U.N., such grotesque and immoral inequality that 26 very rich people now have the same wealth as 3.8 billion poor people in the world. Similarly, a recent study of the U.S. showed that the 400 wealthiest people controlled more wealth than 80 million American families (62% of America) and paid a smaller percentage of taxes than any other group in society, while everything (including our very lives) is commercialized to endlessly accumulate more capital for those already rich.
Capitalism is not only responsible for this inequality and poverty, but also for the existential threat posed by the current climate crisis. This is because capitalism is a system of infinite growth operating on a finite planet. As numerous climate scientists have repeatedly pointed out, if there is no transition to a different and more sustainable system, humanity itself will be at risk in a relatively few years. In short, the planet as a place of human habitation is being destroyed for the immediate enrichment of the very few. The gradual approach of recent decades has obviously fallen short, making radical options necessary. The climate crisis represents the ultimate market failure and decisive government action is required to save numerous different species as well as humanity itself. To avoid the looming catastrophe, the cuts in carbon emissions necessary for survival require a head on confrontation with the capitalists and their growth system, something that the capitalist supporting Elizabeth Warren shows no sign of having much interest in doing. Connected to this is Warren’s acceptance of what she considers political reality, only wanting to push top decision-makers to regulate capitalism, reform markets to make them somewhat fairer, not to energize citizens to become part of a revolutionary political movement to replace both markets and capitalism.
Warren Claims to be a Native American
Another subject worth exploring in terms of Warren’s history is her attempt to claim Native American ancestry during the 1980s and 1990s. During that era, as today, there are potential benefits from affirmative action if one successfully claims to be a “person of color.” The legitimate reason behind affirmative action is an | 3,540,605 |
attempt to compensate, in at least some limited way, for the historical suffering imposed on groups that were oppressed through discrimination in the past, which has often continued into the present.
Ample evidence exists that Warren, without justification, tried to play the identity politics card and capitalize on the immense suffering endured by indigenous peoples in this country, summed up as attempted genocide, as well as the massive land theft by the settler colonialist system brought into the U.S. from Europe. On official documents, such as her State Bar of Texas registration card dated April 18, 1986, Warren listed her race as “Native American.” While working at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s and early 1990s she also claimed that she was a Native American. During the same period, she registered herself as a minority with the Association of American Law Schools, and identified herself as a Cherokee Indian in a cook book called Pow Wow Chow that she contributed to. When she went to Harvard as a tenured law professor, Mike Chmura, the law school’s news director, repeatedly touted Warren as the “first woman of color,” specifically a Native American, given tenure at his institution.
Actual Native American people have the culture and tribal affiliation which makes them authentic. Such a status does not depend upon the “proof” of a DNA test. In any case, DNA test results for Warren showed that any Native American DNA in her genes was 6 to 10 generations removed, meaning there was perhaps one ancestor in her racial background hundreds of years ago. Warren’s misguided attempt to “prove” her Native American heritage angered many Native people and gave Donald Trump another talking point against her. In short, Elizabeth Warren is a fully European-American person and, by claiming to be a person of color, took away the chance for an actual oppressed minority person to be appointed to the top positions that she filled as professor at several law schools.
Early 2019: Warren’s Duel Declarations as a Presidential Candidate
Warren’s kickoff as a presidential candidate had two contradictory aspects, both of them emblematic. They took place at virtually the same time. One was an event with a populist focus, the other was a magazine article with a plutocratic focus.
Warren established her exploratory committee on December 31, 2018. The official kickoff event of the campaign was on February 9, 2019, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Warren spoke to the crowd and media at the site of Everett Mills. This is where in 1912 the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW) union led a mainly immigrant and female working class in the bitter but successful “Bread and Roses” strike. The strike was against the textile mill owning capitalists and the system they controlled (violent police, unfair courts, bought off politicians). At the kickoff, Warren took a populist stance, talking about the “middle class” being squeezed by an unfair system, but using the term “working people” not working class, and “rich guys” instead of the plutocratic capitalist class.
Unnoticed by the media was the fact that at the same time, January-February, 2019, the Council on Foreign Relations’ house journal Foreign Affairs featured an article by Senator Warren entitled “A Foreign Policy for All,” (together with a photo of the candidate). Numerous other past presidential candidates, including Barack Obama, were selected by the Council to place an article in Foreign Affairs at an early stage of their run for the presidency. Connecting to the Council can bring favorable treatment from the media, as well as contributions and endorsements from political and economically influential people. Warren’s willingness to write an article for the Council’s magazine can be read as a signal that she is available and would work to promote the CFR agenda if elected president. Warren undoubtedly knows the value of having her name associated with the world’s most powerful and influential private organization, “Wall Street’s Think Tank.” The Council is the ultimate networking, socializing, strategic planning, and consensus-forming institution of the dominant U.S. plutocratic billionaire class, the think tank of monopoly-finance capital. Its connections extend deeply into key capitalist class families, top corporations, leading media, elite universities, powerful non-profits, foundations, other think tanks and international organizations, as well as international policy planning and agenda setting groups like the Bilderberg group, Trilateral Commission, and the Davos crowd. The CFR’s membership is 5000-plus and the hardcopy readership of Foreign Affairs is currently 329,000, with another 340,000 E-newsletter subscribers and over two million monthly page views. Calling itself the “voice of authority,” Foreign Affairs magazine states that it “…offers engagement with the people whose decisions sway markets, define industries and direct the course of nations – the segment of the population known as the Influential | 3,540,606 |
Elite.”
As this is written in October, 2019, Warren is the only 2020 presidential candidate of either party who has been allowed to present their policy ideas to the very influential Foreign Affairs audience. How and why Warren received this benefit from what is the world’s most powerful private organization is unclear, but at minimum, they must see her as a kind of ally, especially in the struggle against the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party.
What Warren wrote in her article was a mix of populist-sounding phrases about the outsized power of “wealthy elites” (no use of the word class except in “middle class”) and assurances that “progress” will not adversely affect the interests of the capitalist class: “none of this requires sacrificing the interests of American businesses … shareholders and corporate executives will profit as well.” Although lamenting the gigantic military budget “too large too long” she neglects to mention the numerous times she voted for this extreme militarism, as late as the 2017 military budget for example, which actually exceeded President Trump’s requested amount. With this and other votes Warren signals that she clearly wants the U.S. to continue to be the world’s hegemonic power.
In her Foreign Affairs article, Warren also resorts to vague generalities like the wealthy should pay their “fair share” of taxes, without specifically saying what that would be. She uses the term “Foreign Policy Starts at Home” as the heading for one of her sections, this is almost exactly the same phrase that CFR president Richard Haass used for his 2013 book Foreign Policy Begins at Home.
One effect of Warren’s CFR connection is her profile was raised among key media people, resulting in positive media coverage of her campaign, helping her breakout from the large pack of Democratic Party presidential candidates. Do to the large number of types of media and media outlets, it is difficult to adequately document the favorable media coverage that Warren has received. But detailed reviews of Warren’s policy proposals (but not Bernie Sanders proposals) as well as emotionally-connected pictures in people’s heads adding up to positive feelings for Warren are being regularly transmitted by the U.S. mainstream media.
Warren Develops a Full Set of Policy Positions
The mainstream media is sometimes confused by Warren’s contradictory stances. On the one hand one of the Financial Times’ top analysts (Tom Braithwaite) stated that Warren “offers to reform capitalism rather than overthrow it. This is not the worst outcome” and that therefore “corporate fear goes too far” (October 5/6, 2019). On the other hand, The Financial Times also expressed the common view that Warren’s “campaign platform is similar” to Bernie Sanders’ (October 3, 2019). This is the superficial view, once closely examined, the key differences between her and Sanders’ policies are clear.
As her campaign developed during the spring and summer of 2019, Warren stated that the “core” of her campaign was focused on corruption. She also laid out a full set of often progressive policy positions, all of them more conservative than the policies argued for by Bernie Sanders. Warren’s aim seems obvious: to take away as many of Sanders’ supporters as possible, while still retaining many key establishment backers who understand that this is what she has to do to gain the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. In short, Warren is positioning herself to be the second most progressive candidate in the race, one that is still strongly pro-capitalist and therefore more acceptable to the more middle-of-the-road and establishment elements of the Democratic Party. This is most clearly seen in her Green New Deal, health care, and student debt proposals.
Warren’s Version of a Green New Deal
There are many Green New Deal (GND) plans, each presidential candidate has a variation on what a GND should include, how much it should cost, and where the money would come from.
The proper goal of a GND is to adequately respond to the scientific consensus about what needs to be done to reverse the existential threat of climate chaos. Since Warren’s favorite approach — the market — has failed, this means that a large scale government program, like that during the Great Depression and World War II period, needs to put in place. This would subordinate private capital accumulation to the public good. Such a holistic vision of the next economy would involve a planned program of green infrastructure, agro-ecological agriculture and just transition investment, which would guarantee jobs and income to people laid off from fossil fuel intensive jobs. If large enough, it could be a giant step in the right direction, towards saving a habitable planet and moving toward a truly democratic and inclusionary society, based on class solidarity, full employment and the empowerment of the multicultural working class. An | 3,540,607 |
adequate GND also involves an international dimension, serious funding for poorer nations to allow them to skip over the fossil fuel stage directly to a renewable energy economy.
All this requires overcoming the hegemony of the capitalist market which favors the wealthy, leading to 100% clean energy and serving the needs of the vast majority of the people. This is one source of its power as an idea: it might be able to mobilize a large scale movement behind it. Such a movement of masses of people in action will be necessary to save a habitable planet whoever is elected president in 2020. During the crucial past several decades the capitalist market with its cap and trade and carbon tax proposals has failed to even slow down climate change. Now the best science states we have only a little over a decade to radically change business as usual and get off the path we are on leading towards inconceivable planetary, national and individual disasters.
Although stating that climate change means “our very existence is at stake,” Warren at first proposed only a medium-scale GND, which would spend $3 trillion dollars over ten years, with the usual promises of renewable energy, jobs and economic development especially for poor communities, but no international aspect. This initial plan was followed up on later, Warren adding another $1 trillion, after Bernie Sanders came out with his comprehensive $16.3 trillion GND plan. Hers is the second largest among the Democratic presidential candidates, but is only one fourth the size of Sanders’ plan. It is clearly inadequate to begin to deal to the revolutionary task at hand. Not doing enough on this issue–preserving a livable space on planet earth–has unimaginable costs for our human future.
Warren’s GND plan also suffers from a shocking misplacement of emphasis. It includes a section on “Our Military Can Help Lead the Fight Against Climate Change.” Ignoring the fact that the U.S. military is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, Warren states that climate change is “undermining our military readiness” making it more difficult for the U.S. armed forces to “perform their mission.” Warren, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, wants to “harden the military against the threat posed by climate change.” This is because some military bases might be impacted by hurricanes, floods or other climate-change-related events. Warren fails to recognize that the traditional “mission” of the U.S. military – most accurately characterized as attempts to dominate other nations and peoples through invasions, perpetual wars, and assassinations by Special Forces and drones, all of which greatly increase environmental destruction and greenhouse gas pollution — must be scrapped. So instead of calling for serious cuts in the bloated military budget and a transformation of the “mission” to one of promoting peace, Warren wants to make the U.S. military better able to impose U.S. imperialist hegemony, colonial type domination of territory, people and strategic resources worldwide. Therefore, Warren also has voted in favor of most of the military budgets that have come before her in the Senate, at a time when the U.S. annually spends many times more than China, the second highest spender. All this at a critical moment when military activities need to be radically cut to reduce pollution and fund the Green New Deal.
Warren and Health Care
When Warren ran for Senate in 2012, she was against single-payer health care, arguing that “you’ve got to stay with what’s possible.” Now she has stated that she is in favor of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All single payer plan. This is one of Sanders’ popular signature issues, and to win over those people, Warren cannot allow any daylight on health care between her and the Vermont Senator. One vocal Warren supporter, Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, verified that Warren’s stance on health care was tactical, saying that it is “an important long-term investment in her relationship with Sanders’ voters” (San Francisco Chronicle September 15, 2019).
Since signing on to Medicare for All, however, Warren has backtracked, arguing that there are “a lot of different pathways” to universal health care. She also stated that Medicare for All is simply a “framework,” that “I support a lot of plans,” and has refused to state how it would be funded. These equivocating statements in effect tells the wealthy and powerful private insurance industry that she might well want to keep much of the current system of high premiums and millions of uncovered Americans. What is going on is that Warren is co-opting the Medicare for All term, but not being specific about exactly what she means by it, leaving it murky with wiggle room to compromise with the vested interests later. Given her history of love for the market and reform approach generally, it is likely that her true | 3,540,608 |
The Prodigy singer Keith Flint has died, aged 49. The vocalist, musician and dancer was found dead at his home in Dunmow, Essex.
The electronic group confirmed the death in a statement, reading: "It is with deepest shock and sadness that we can confirm the death of our brother and best friend Keith Flint. A true pioneer, innovator and legend. He will be forever missed. We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time."
According to bandmate Liam Howlett, Flint "took his own life".
An Essex Police spokesman said: “We were called to concerns for the welfare of a man at an address in Brook Hill, North End, just after 8.10am on Monday
“We attended and, sadly, a 49-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.”
Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Show all 15 1 /15 Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint onstage with The Prodigy supporting Oasis at Knebworth in August 1996 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint on stage with The Prodigy during Reading '98 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint on stage with The Prodigy during Reading '98 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint and Maxim of The Prodigy onstage at the Forum in London in November 1994 Rex Features Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint of The Prodigy performs at the V97 concert at Temple Newsham, Leeds in 1997 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint of The Prodigy performs at the Grolsch Summer Set at Somerset House on August 6 2005 Getty Keith Flint's wild performances remembered The Prodigy performing on the Main Stage during Radio 1's Big Weekend at Lydiard Park in Swindon in May 2009 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint onstage with The Prodigy supporting Oasis at Knebworth in August 1996 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint of the Prodigy performing during the Mayday techno festival in Dortmund on May 1 2006 Getty Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint of the The Prodigy performs during the Big Day Out 2009 in Brisbane, Australia Getty Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint of the The Prodigy on the main stage at the Carling Weekend music festival in Reading in 2002 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint on stage with The Prodigy during the Northside Festival in Aarhus, Denmark on June 10, 2017 AFP/Getty Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Keith Flint on stage with The Prodigy at T in the Park at Balado, Kinross in Scotland in 2003 PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered Prodigy lead singer Keith Flint performs during the Oxegen Festival 2008 at the Punchestown Racecourse in Naas, County Kildare PA Keith Flint's wild performances remembered January 1997 cover of of UK music magazine Select. featuring Keith Flint of the Prodigy, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp and Noel Gallagher and Bonehead of Oasis
East of England Ambulance services were called to the scene, where an unnamed man was initially found unconscious. An ambulance was sent but the person, later reported to be Flint, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Flint quickly became one of the figureheads for British electronic music during the Nineties as a member of The Prodigy. Although he initially joined the group – formed by producer Liam Howlett in 1990 – as a dancer, he later graduated to singer and performed the popular 1996 tracks “Firestarter” and “Breathe”.
Both singles became staples of the UK rave scene and topped the UK singles charts, while the black-and-white music video for “Firestarter” was banned by the BBC after it aired during Top of the Pops. Parents had complained that their children had been frightened by the manically dancing, heavily pierced singer.
Flint and Howlett, who were soon joined by rapper Maxim and keyboardist Leeroy Thornhill, scored their first number one record with Music for the Jilted Generation. Their proceeding five studio albums and one compilation record all topped the UK album charts.
Radio DJ Jo Whiley led tributes to Flint, writing on Twitter: “Oh this is sad news. The death of Keith Flint. Whenever our paths crossed he was an absolute sweetheart. Really lovely. Incredible iconic frontman with a soft centre.”
Ed Simons, a member of the fellow electronic music group The Chemical Brothers, tweeted: “Oh gosh, so sad to hear about Keith Flint, he was always great fun to be around and very kind to Tom and I when we first started doing shows together.. great man.”
Chase & Status, a group heavily inspired by The Prodigy, wrote: � | 3,540,609 |
�Absolutely devastated to hear the tragic news that the legend Keith Flint from the Prodigy has passed away. Our thoughts & condolences are with all his friends and family. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Keith and the life changing music they made and championed. RIP.”
Culture stars we lost in 2019 Show all 91 1 /91 Culture stars we lost in 2019 Culture stars we lost in 2019 Dean Ford Ford, whose real name was Thomas McAleese, was the frontman of guitar-pop group Marmalade. The band the first Scottish group to top the UK singles chart, with their cover of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in December 1968. Ford died in Los Angeles on 31 December 2018, at the age of 72 from complications relating to Parkinson's disease. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Pegi Young A singer, songwriter, environmentalist, educator and philanthropist, she was also married to Neil Young for 36 years. She died of cancer on 1 January, aged 66, in Mountain View, California. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Daryl Dragon The singer and pianist achieved fame as half of the musical duo Captain & Tennille, best known for their 1975 hit "Love Will Keep Us Together". Dragon died on 2 January, from kidney failure in Prescott, Arizona, aged 76. Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Darius Perkins The actor was best known for playing the original Scott Robinson on Neighbours when the show launched in 1985 on Australia's Channel Seven. Perkins died from cancer on 2 January, aged 54 Ten Culture stars we lost in 2019 Bob Einstein The Emmy-winning writer appeared in US comedy shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development, becoming known for his deadpan delivery. He died on 2 January, shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia, aged 76. HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Culture stars we lost in 2019 Carol Channing The raspy-voiced, saucer-eyed, wide-smiling actor played lead roles in the original Broadway musical productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!, while delivering an Oscar-nominated performance in the 1967 film version of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. Channing died on 15 January of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, California at the age of 97. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Mary Oliver Oliver, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, wrote rapturous odes to nature and animal life that brought her critical acclaim and popular affection, writing more than 15 poetry and essay collections. She died on 17 January, aged 83, in Hobe Sound, Florida. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Windsor Davies The actor was best known for his role as Battery Sergeant-Major Williams in the TV series It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, which ran from 1974 to 1981. He died on 17 January, aged 88, four months after the death of his wife, Eluned. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Jonas Mekas The Lithuanian-born filmmaker, who escaped a Nazi labour camp and became a refugee, rose to acclaim in New York and went on to work with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Janis Joplin and Andy Warhol. He died on 23 January, aged 96, in New York City. Chuck Close Culture stars we lost in 2019 Andre Previn Andre Previn, the four-time Oscar-winning composer, conductor and pianist, died at his Manhattan home aged 89. The German-born virtuoso, who enjoyed a career spanning eight decades, worked on more than 500 albums and films including Gigi, My Fair Lady, and Porgy and Bess. Alongside success in Hollywood, the pianist also memorably performed a beloved classic music sketch with the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Diana Athill The writer, novelist and editor worked with authors including Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Jean Rhys and VS Naipaul. She died at a hospice in London on 23 January, aged 101, following a short illness. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Michel Legrand During a career spanning more than 50 years, the French musician wrote the scores for over 200 films and TV series, as well as original songs. In 1968, he won his first Oscar for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair film. He died in Paris on 26 January at the age of 86. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 James Ingram The singer and songwriter, who was nominated for 14 Grammys in his lifetime, was well known for his hits including “Baby, Come to Me,” his duet sung with Patti Austin and “Yah Mo B There,” a duet sung with Michael McDonald, which won him a Grammy. Ingram died on 29 January, aged 66, from brain cancer, at his home in Los Angeles | 3,540,610 |
15 March, aged 79 PA Culture stars we lost in 2019 Mike Thalassitis Mike Thalassitis was a semi-professional footballer before finding fame on the third season of Love Island. He died aged 26. Rex Features Culture stars we lost in 2019 Dick Dale Dale is credited with pioneering the surf music style, by drawing on his Middle-Eastern heritage and experimenting with reverberation. He is best known for his hit "Misirlou", used in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. He died on Saturday, 16 March, aged 81. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Bernie Tormé Guitarist Bernie Tormé rose to fame in the seventies before joining Ozzy Osbourne on tour in 1982, following the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in a plane crash that same year. The Dublin-born musician died on 17 March, 2019 at the age of 66. YouTube Culture stars we lost in 2019 Andre Williams R&B singer and songwriter Andre Williams co-wrote "Shake a Tail Feather" among many other hits, signing first with Fortune Records then with Motown. The Alabama native, who relocated to Detroit as a young man, died on 17 March, aged 82. YouTube Culture stars we lost in 2019 Scott Walker The American British singer-songwriter and producer who rose to fame with The Walker Brothers during the Sixties and was once referred to as "pop's own Salinger", died on 22 March, aged 76. He was one of the most prolific artists of his generation, despite shunning the spotlight following his brief years as a teen idol, and released a string of critically acclaimed albums as well as writing a number of film scores, and producing albums for other artists including Pulp. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Agnès Varda French New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda died on 29 March, aged 90. She was best known for the films "Cléo from 5 to 7" and "Vagabond" and was widely regarded to be one of the most influential experimental and feminist filmmakers of all time. AFP/Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Tania Mallet Model and Bond girl Tania Mallet died on 30 March, aged 77. She earned her only credited acting role opposite Sean Connery in 1964 film Goldfinger, playing Tilly Masterson. United Artists Culture stars we lost in 2019 Boon Gould (right) One of the founding members of Level 42, Boon Gould, died on 1 March, aged 64. He was a guitarist and saxophone player. Rex Features Culture stars we lost in 2019 Nipsey Hussle Grammy-nominated rapper Nipsey Hussle was shot outside his clothing store in Los Angeles on 1 April. He was 33. Hussle, who was once signed to Sony’s Epic Records, had a breakthrough with Victory Lap, his critically acclaimed major-label debut album on Atlantic Records. The album appeared on several "best of" lists including Complex and Billboard. (Photo by Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Warner Music) Culture stars we lost in 2019 John Singleton John Singleton, the famed director best known for his film Boyz N the Hood, died aged 51. Singleton had been on life support following a stroke on 17 April, at which point he was taken to an intensive care unit in Los Angeles. His family decided to take him off of life support on 29 April. The acclaimed filmmaker was the first African American nominated for a best director Oscar for Boyz N the Hood, and was the youngest ever to be nominated for that same award at the time in 1991. He directed that film while he was in his 20s, and fresh out of film school. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Freddie Starr Comedian Starr was the star of several eponymous TV shows during the 1990s such as Freddie Starr, The Freddie Starr Show and An Audience with Freddie Starr. Starr was the subject of one of the most famous tabloid headlines in the history of the British press, splashed on the front page of The Sun in 1986: "Freddie Starr ate my hamster." Starr was found dead in his home in Costa Del Sol on 9 May 2019. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Peggy Lipton Twin Peaks star Peggy Lipton died of cancer, aged 72 on 11 May. Culture stars we lost in 2019 Doris Day Doris Day became Hollywood’s biggest female star by the early 1960s starring in Calamity Jane, Pillow Talk and Caprice to name a few. Day died on 15 May after a serious bout of pneumonia. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Andrew Hall Andrew Hall died on 20 May, 2019 after a short illness, according to his management group. The actor was best known for playing Russell Parkinson in the BBC show Butterflies and Marc Selby in Coronation Street. He had also recently appeared as The Gentleman in Syfy's Blood Drive. Photo by ITV/REX Culture stars we lost in 2019 Carmine Cardini Carmine Cardini, | 3,540,611 |
who was most famous for playing two different roles in the Godfather franchise, died on 28 May, 2019 at Cedars Sinai Hospital, aged 85. He played Carmine Rosato in The Godfather Part II (1974) before returning to the franchise in 1990 as Albert Volpe in The Godfather Part III. Paramount Pictures Culture stars we lost in 2019 Judith Kerr Judith Kerr, the author and illustrator best known for The Tiger Who Came to Tea, died at the age of 95 on 23 May. Born in Berlin in 1923, the daughter of a German-Jewish theatre critic, Kerr was forced to flee Germany with her family after the rise of the Nazi Party because her father had been openly critical of the Nazis. His books were burnt shortly after they left the country. The Kerrs travelled first to Switzerland, then to France and finally to Britain, where Kerr remained for the rest of her life. Although she had always wanted to be an author, she only began to write and draw when her own children were learning to read. Alongside The Tiger Who Came to Tea – which concerns a young girl and her mother, whose afternoon tea is interrupted by the arrival of said feline – Kerr is also known for her 17-book Mog series, which details the adventures of an ordinary house cat. AFP/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Dr John The celebrated pianist and musician who for decades delighted audiences and fans around the world using the stage name Dr John, died aged 77 on 6 June. The man who combined blues, honky-tonk and elements of ragtime to create a style as memorable and captivating as his home city of New Orleans, died early on Thursday from a heart attack. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Peter Mayhew Peter Mayhew, best known for his role as Chewbacca in the Star Wars film series, died at the age of 74. The film star stood over seven feet tall and played the fictional character who serves as a loyal friend to the franchise’s protagonist, Han Solo. REUTERS Culture stars we lost in 2019 Leon Redbone Leon Redbone died on 30 May, 2019, aged 69. The singer-songwriter, who was noticed by Bob Dylan in the Seventies and was an early guest on Saturday Night Live, released more than 15 albums over the course of four decades. Photo by Chris Capstick/REX Culture stars we lost in 2019 Paul Darrow Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who star Paul Darrow died in June aged 78 following a short illness. The Surrey-born actor was best known for playing Kerr Avon in BBC sci-fi series Blake’s 7 during the 70s and 80s, but also appeared in more than 200 other shows including The Saint, Z Cars, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Little Britain. PA Culture stars we lost in 2019 Cameron Boyce Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce died in his sleep on 6 July, aged 20. His family later confirmed the actor, who appeared in Jessie and descendants, had epilepsy. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Rip Torn Rip Torn, the film, TV and theatre actor, died on 9 July, 2019, aged 88. His career spanned seven decades. AFP/GETTY Culture stars we lost in 2019 Michael Sleggs Michael Sleggs, who appeared as Slugs in hit BBC Three sitcom This Country, died from heart failure on 9 July, 2019, aged 33. BBC Culture stars we lost in 2019 Freddie Jones Emmerdale actor Freddie Jones died aged 91 in July. The British star was most recently known for playing Sandy Thomas in the soap from 2005 until 2018. He also starred in Hollywood films Dune, The Elephant Man and Firefox. ITV Culture stars we lost in 2019 Rutger Hauer Dutch actor Rutger Hauer famously played replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. As Batty, he delivered the iconic "tears in the rain" monologue. Hauer died on 19 July, 2019 aged 75. TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Paula Williamson Actor Paula Williamson, who starred in Coronation Street and married criminal Charles Bronson, was found dead on 29 July, 2019. Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Toni Morrison Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison died at the age of 88 on 6 August. Her death was confirmed “with profound sadness” by the Morrison family, who said she had passed away in the Bronx, New York, “following a short illness”. The celebrated writer of 11 novels was known for her searing works about slavery and the experiences of black women, including 1987’s Beloved, the story of a runaway female slave – for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the following year. She became the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Bettmann Archive Culture stars we lost in 2019 David Berman David Berman, frontman of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, died by suicide on 7 August, 2019, | 3,540,612 |
aged 52. MediaPunch/REX Culture stars we lost in 2019 Peter Fonda Peter Fonda died of respiratory failure due to lung cancer on 16 August, 2019. aged 79, his family said. He was the co-writer and star of counterculture classic Easy Rider (1969). AP Culture stars we lost in 2019 Ben Unwin Home and Away star Ben Unwin was found dead aged 41 on 14 August, according to New South Wales Police. He starred as 'bad boy' Jesse McGregor on the popular Australian soap between 1996-2000, and then 2002-2005 before switching to a career in law Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Franco Columbu Italian bodybuilder, who appeared in The Terminator, The Running Man and Conan the Barbarian, died on 30 August, 2019, aged 78. The former Mr Olympia enjoyed a successful career as a boxer and was best friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Kylie Rae Harris The country singer died in a car crash on 4 September, 2019, at the age of 30. Harris, of Wylie, Texas, she was scheduled to perform at a music festival in New Mexico the next day. YouTube / Kylie Rae Harris Culture stars we lost in 2019 LaShawn Daniels Songwriter and producer LaShawn Daniels died 4 September aged 41. He was best known for his collaborations with producer Darkchild, and had songwriting credits on a number of pop and R&B classics by artists including Beyonce, Destiny's Child, Janet and Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Brandy and Whitney Houston. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Carol Lynley The actor, best known for her role as Nonnie the cruise liner singer in The Poseidon Adventure, died on 3 September at the age of 77. Dove/Daily Express/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Jimmy Johnson Jimmy Johnson, revered session guitarist and co-founder of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, died 5 September 2019, aged 76. AP Culture stars we lost in 2019 John Wesley John Wesley, the actor who played Dr Hoover on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, died in September 2019 aged 72 of complications stemming from multiple myeloma, according to his family. His other acting credits included Baywatch as well as the the 1992 buddy cop comedy film 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot'. YouTube / Warner Bros Domestic Television Distribution Culture stars we lost in 2019 Daniel Johnston Influential lo-fi musician Daniel Johnston died in September 2019 following a heart attack, according to The Austin Chronicle. His body of work includes the celebrated 1983 album 'Hi, How Are You'. ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Ric Ocasek Ric Ocasek, frontman of new wave rock band The Cars, died 15 September at the age of 75. Ocasek was pronounced dead after police were alerted to an unresponsive male at a Manhattan townhouse. A cause of death has yet to be confirmed, though The Daily Beast reports that an NYPD official said Ocasek appeared to have died from “natural causes”. Ocasek found fame as the lead singer of The Cars, who were integral in the birth of the new wave movement and had hits including “Drive”, “Good Times Roll” and “My Best Friend’s Girl”. Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Netflix Culture stars we lost in 2019 Suzanne Whang The former host turned narrator of HGTV's House Hunters died on 17 September. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and initially recovered, until the disease returned in October 2018. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Robert Hunter The lyricist, who's behind some of the Grateful Dead's finest songs, died on 23 September at the age of 78. His best known Grateful Dead songs include 'Cumberland Blues,' 'It Must Have Been the Roses,' and 'Terrapin Station'. Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame Culture stars we lost in 2019 Linda Porter Linda Porter, best known for her role as elderly supermarket employee Myrtle on the US sitcom Superstore, died 25 September after a long battle with cancer. She also appeared in series including Twin Peaks, The Mindy Project, ER and The X-Files Tyler Golden/NBC Culture stars we lost in 2019 Ginger Baker Ginger Baker, the legendary drummer and co-founder of rock band Cream, died at the age of 80 on Sunday 6 October after being critically ill in hospital. The musician co-founded Cream in 1966 with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. Alamy Culture stars we lost in 2019 Alicia Alonso Legendary ballet dancer Alicia Alonso died aged 98 on 18 October. Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel said: “Alicia Alonso has gone and left an enormous void but unbeatable legacy. “She positioned Cuba at the altar of the best of dance worldwide. Thank you Alicia for your immortal work.” Alonso was born Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad Martinez del | 3,540,613 |
Hoyo on 21 December 1921. She first appeared on stage at the age of 10, and fell in love with ballet. “When you look out and you see the theatre full of people, you feel that you are alive, that you have been born,” she told the BBC in 2015. “It's wonderful, it's unique.” Getty Culture stars we lost in 2019 Robert Evans Producer Robert Evans died on 26 October aged 89. He backed seminal films such as 'Chinatown', 'The Godfather', 'Harold and Maude' and 'Love Story'. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Ariel Burdett Ariel Burdett died on 12 November, aged 35. She appeared on The X Factor in 2008 and is considered to have had one of the most memorable auditions in the ITV show's history. ITV Culture stars we lost in 2019 Jill Galloway Heitz Jill Galloway Heitz died at the age of 78 from congestive heart failure on 13 November. Her TV appearances included Glee and Prison Break, and she also starred in David Lynch film The Straight Story. Fox Culture stars we lost in 2019 Terry O'Neill Terry O’Neill, who died aged 81 on 17 November, photographed some of the world’s most legendary stars and public figures, from Audrey Hepburn to David Bowie, Elton John, Winston Churchill and Frank Sinatra. He also shot members of the Royal Family, including the Queen. Among his most recent works was an image of Amy Winehouse at the height of her fame in 2008. Rex Culture stars we lost in 2019 Goo Ha-ra South Korean singer and actor Goo Ha-ra died in November 2019 at the age of 28. AFP Culture stars we lost in 2019 Gary Rhodes Gary Rhodes died on 27 November, aged 59. The English restaurateur and television chef, known for his love of British cuisine and ingredients and for his distinctive spiked hair style, fronted shows such as MasterChef, MasterChef USA, Hell's Kitchen, and his own series, Rhodes Around Britain. AFP Culture stars we lost in 2019 Godfrey Gao Godfrey Gao died on 27 November, aged 35. He suffered a cardiac arrest after collapsing on set of a game show in China. Gao was considered the first Asian supermodel, and appeared in 2013 Hollywood film The Mortal Instruments. Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Ron Leibman Ron Leibman, who played Rachel’s father in Friends, died 7 December at the age of 82. The actor died from pneumonia, a representative for his family confirmed. Leibman won a Tony Award in 1993 for originating the role of the closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn in the first Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. He also appeared in films including Norma Rae and Slaughterhouse-Five. Kevin Winter/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Juice Wrld Chicago-born rapper Juice Wrld, real name Jarad Anthony Higgins, died 8 December at the age of 21. The Associated Press confirmed that the “Lucid Dreams” rapper suffered a "medical emergency" at Chicago's Midway International Airport, and was later pronounced dead in hospital. Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Power 105.1 Culture stars we lost in 2019 Caroll Spinney Puppeteer Caroll Spinney, who portrayed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on the children’s programme Sesame Street, has died at the age of 84. Spinney died 8 December at his home in Connecticut after suffering from Dystonia for some time, the Sesame Workshop confirmed. Robin Marchant/Getty Images for SiriusXM Culture stars we lost in 2019 Rene Auberjonois Prolific character actor Rene Auberjonois died 8 December at the age of 79. His credits included the Robert Altman film MASH and TV shows Benson and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Marie Fredriksson Marie Fredriksson, one-half of the pop duo Roxette, died 9 December after suffering a long illness. Roxette's most famous hits include "It Must Have Been Love" and 'Listen to Your Heart". Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Chris Cotton The US comedian Chris Cotton, best known for the Comedy Central web series Every Damn Day, died on 13 December at the age of 32. A cause of death has yet to be announced. Cotton is survived by his wife Ericalynn, who is due to give birth to their first child in February. Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Comedy Central Culture stars we lost in 2019 Danny Aiello Actor Danny Aiello, best known for his role as Sal in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, died on Thursday, 12 December at the age of 86. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Culture stars we lost in 2019 Chuy Bravo Comedian and entertainer Chuy Bravo, who found fame as the sidekick to | 3,540,614 |
I'm hesitant to label this one as an "in-depth" analysis, since a lot of these cards don't really have anything interesting to go in-depth about.Traditionally one of the most trashy seasonal gachas in the game, NY comes back this year with a smattering of new content. Unfortunately, this fails to fix the REM's main problem: almost all the reasonably good pulls are locked behind higher rarities and poor rates. There are only five rolls below the 6* rarity (none of which are especially phenomenal), but together they add up to a staggering 73% pull rate. There's not too much else to say from a gameplay perspective; the NY REM is suuuuuper dated and simply isn't remarkable or worthwhile for most players.It's disappointing that the rates remain so awful even after three silvers were stripped and tossed into the event dungeon as invades. In case you've missed the message thus far, probably don't roll this thing.
You can click on a rarity or a card's name to jump to the corresponding section of analysis. The arrow ↑ at the bottom right of each analysis will take you back up here. Please see this page for an explanation of the rating criteria.Rate data is provided by GungHo.* denotes substantial or unique (or both) farming usage.
NY Jeanne is a really niche card and pretty subpar for general usage. She is, however, one of the best autoheal sticks in the game in the few situations where that might be desired, so she doesn't get a completely failing score.Jeanne combines characteristics that many other autohealers would love to have. Her most direct competitors are Misery and Stormwing Odin Dragon. Though each has its advantages, Jeanne often turns out to be a great choice among these.Misery's primary claim to fame is more autohealing. Seven autoheals compared to six might not seem like a big difference, but on a team like Kiri, where that extra 1,000 difference in healing is effectively closer to 17,000, that extra autoheal can mean never having to actively heal from a huge hit, adding reliability to your run. Misery also has a generally more useful base active; the poisons often insignificant in the face of autohealing and a shield might be nice to, say, tank a large preemptive as you enter the next floor. Having the shield on a low cooldown is an added bonus. However, when compared to Jeanne, Misery has no SBR and has a pretty useless TPA instead of the second Skill Boost. Both the second Skill Boost and the SBR are a highly important consideration and can make or break builds.Odin Dragon, on the other hand, is totally different. Unbindability on your autohealing is fantastic and the base active is incredible in a variety of situations (compared to Jeanne's comparatively unimpressive one). Odin Dragon also has enormously more stats, notably HP, and additionally benefits greatly from autoheal latents due to his huge base RCV. However, there's a significant opportunity cost in general to using this Odin Dragon form, as the other Odin Dragon is better for pretty much everything else and neither can be pulled from the REM, and so Jeanne ends up as the vastly more accessible and practical option for most players. And again, as with Misery, her second Skill Boost and SBR give Jeanne the edge over Odin Dragon in a variety of scenarios and make her a really nice autohealer on the whole.Note that in a non-autohealing context, Jeanne is pretty bad and you probably should not use her.You could probably clear Arena 1 with this given the kinds of combo subs with these two typings, but honestly do yourself a favor and just... don't.Not inheritable, due to 4* rarity. (You probably wouldn't want to anyways.)
Good but not irreplaceable, NY Tengu is a bit of a convenience roll, as nearly everything about him is identical to regular Tengu. The only difference is a light sub-attribute compared to a dark one, which makes almost no difference anywhere but can occasionally help in farming builds against absorbs or in avoiding getting bound by something like Nordis preemptive. On the other hand, light sub-attribute doesn't help against spawns like Hera-Beorc, and it's plausible you might want regular Tengu on your team to boost the damage of something like Nergigante Hunter, which takes into account the entire team's wood and dark Attack. Still, they're almost equivalent apart from these niche scenarios.Really straightforward usage almost everywhere normal Tengu is, as described above. This isn't rated highly because it's irreplaceable, but more because regular Tengu is just good in general, and a cheap clone of a good thing is, well, just as good.Also, you get to look like a whale if you have like four of them. I guess that counts for something?Exceptionally poor outside | 3,540,615 |
of the few specific purposes (ex. pairing with Amaterasu ) that regular Tengu is known for. The actual multipliers are helpful in even fewer situations and aren't much of a bonus at all.Not inheritable, due to 4* rarity. (But would be hilarious if it were!)
Hanzo has some clear perks (Dragon Killer, two Skill Boosts, fairly unique active) and some equally clear disadvantages (horrible HP, overall low-impact active though unique). Most cards with useful Killers can end up useful somewhere, especially for newer players. Owing to his very bad HP, though, Hanzo doesn't scale too well into content beyond Arena 1.As described above, Hanzo is an acceptable sub for newer players and the Dragon Killer will make plenty of tasks easier. His effectiveness will fall offquickly, though, as his massive liability of an HP stat becomes evident in any kind of reasonably tough content.Despite his combination of Skill Boosts, low cooldown active, and Dragon Killer, Hanzo isn't even very usable on most farming teams, as Tsubaki makes for a much better inherit base, is on-color for a powerful farming archetype, and is simply better overall. Hanzohave one or two very niche farming uses (such as buttoning 0-stamina Legendary Earth, though this event has never actually come back), but his applicability is so narrow that he's still not worth it.This is just awful. I can't even think of anything clever to say about 2.25/4/2.25. Pixel your starter dragon or something and don't lead with this.Single orb changes make for poor inherits in the vast majority of situations, since they are generally about as impactful and reliable as their cooldown indicates. Hanzo's orb change, though fairly unique (in some instances, you might benefit from comboing it with an Ilm board), is objectively low impact. Teams that rely on both light and fire orbs are also comparatively common, further putting a damper on his potential usage. Furthermore, it's strictly inferior to Wedding Akechi. Overall, a lackluster inherit, but still usable due to the semi-unique color change if it happens to be what your team needs (perhaps you want a damage + FUA board by using Saria into Hanzo, for instance).
One of the better low-star rolls, the ever-charming Spica is very analogous to Castor & Pollux, offering completely parallel awakenings and a similar stat distribution. She has acceptable, though not mind-blowing, uses as both sub and assist.If you lack the best subs, Spica is usable on Rushana for her combination of awakenings and active. Just like Castor & Pollux, she is also a way for Light Hera Dragon teams to cover their SBR problem. She is usable in some other places -- L/G color coverage is uncommon, for instance -- but very middling stats and a lack of any substantial team utility definitely limit her potential.NY Spica can also be used on some interesting meme system teams, though if you have four NY Spica in the first place there's a reasonably good chance you don't need a guide to tell you whether to roll or what kind of meme system teams to run her on.Workable but unimpressive. On the one hand, NY Spica benefits greatly over Castor & Pollux as a lead due to her ability to sub things like Ragnarok Dragon. On the other hand, Ragnarok Dragon itself is a much better lead and if you have the ability to finish his last form, you almost certainly did it using a better lead than this.This is really nice on Zeus Verse farming teams. One of the columns can be unmatched simply by moving the middle orb towards the center of the board, giving this one active the power to sweep two floors. Verse himself can make use of the light orbs, and something like Shazel can use the wood to sweep a powerful Devil floor.This active is also acceptable as an inherit on something like Rushana. Though not as powerful as something like Sylvie, NY Spica is vastly more accessible (especially after the REM rehaul) as she is not a six-star GFE and has very high rates as free roll (roughly 1/7 of players will free roll one). More generally, on any team that can make use of both these colors, this active adds a respectable amount of damage on a reasonable cooldown.
Really underwhelming, especially in terms of her pathetic stats, but not literally unusable. Despite her poor Attack (as an Attacker, no less!), she can serve as a makeshift Machine Killer sub for players who do not yet have access to better options (ex. Machine Goemon ). Note that for some reason, unlike regular Mitsuki, she isn't unbindable and doesn't have a bind clear active.NY Mitsuki is only really usable for her Machine Killer. Shefails to bring much to the table otherwise, and | 3,540,616 |
her absolutely horrendous HP in particular preculdes her use as a legitimate option on more advanced teams or in more difficult dungeons.You, in theory, grind through a disappointingly large amount of content with this HP multiplier. You, in theory, also throw your phone in the river and never play PAD again. The second is almost a better idea than the first. Just because something isdoesn't mean that it should be done.In case you missed the message: don't lead with this.Typically not worth inheriting. Heart making and haste is an interesting combination of effects, but this active just doesn't pack enough offensive presence. A Heroes-style active, such as Awoken Yamato, will frequently accomplish more overall, being strong in both offense and defense.
Well, her stats are almost as bad as Leilan's until you see the two Multi Boosts. This card is interesting and sort of quirky.Two Multi Boosts and reasonable base stats makes NY Ame a decent stat stick for light teams. Her awakenings, however, leave a bit to be desired for regular gameplay, as she does not have SBR or row bind clear. Add in a base active that's long but average at best, and you've got yourself a statistically strong yet unremarkable sub. She does, however, excel on farming teams, as described below.This would have been great in February 2016. It is now February 2018. I'm unimpressed.The multi-nuke portion of the active has no substantial utility, beyond some fairly simplistic functions such as buttoning the Super King floor of rogues. (Legiana Hunter also works for this purpose and is much easier to get, if you've made her.) Until we get a truly good use for multi-nuke actives (and no, this is not a good use), this means that the multi-nuke essentially amounts to a giant chunk of tacked on cooldown that is useless for almost all practical purposes on an otherwise sorta okay bind clear active (though four turns of awoken bind clear is mildly underwhelming still). On the other hand, this does have a niche as the only bind clear + true damage in NA that can hit multiple targets, and so might find someniche usages (such as against Amaterasu TAMADRA where she appears in a few descends), though note that the multi-nuke animation is extremely slow (which is partially compensated for by how fun it is to watch, at least the first couple of times).A double Multi Boost card's most direct utility is typically going to be in button farming with nuke actives, and so Attack is one of the first things to be considered for this purpose. Unfortunately, NY Ame is noticeably weaker than Christmas Solais, her most direct competitor. The difference in Attack stats is of course magnified even further by two Multi Boost awakenings, leading to a significantly weaker button base overall as far as damage is concerned. NY Ame, with 5050 Attack after latents and hypermax, is closer in power to regular Solais (4748) than Christmas Solais (5675).However, damage is frequently not the only consideration. Considering the rest of their awakening lineup, NY Ame does have one thing over Christmas Solais: a second Skill Boost. Despite Ame's much longer base active, an inherited Grimmjow is just 18 turns, which is acceptable for farming teams, and the second Skill Boost does provide significant team-wide utility and can absolutely make or break a farming build. On the whole, neither ends up being abetter choice (and it's worth noting that Ame still has higher damage than all the traditional single Multi Boost buttons, with the possible exception of Nergigante Hunter). Christmas Solais has huge potential for new uses, new button targets, and new builds, due to her considerably higher Attack overall and huge nuke damage. NY Ame, on the other hand, unlocks different sorts of potential in a different way -- that second Skill Boost.The release of the farmable Nergigante Hunter, also a potentially very powerful button with two Skill Boosts, does make Ame less powerful and unique contextually. However, for more casual farmers, players who do not wish to invest in a high number of Nergigante Hunters, or dungeons where said Hunter would be a liability to teambuilding flexibility, Ame is still extremely powerful. Remember that she is stronger than regular Solais and has a second Skill Boost over her.Do be aware of NY Ame's much higher cooldown, though, as 12 turns is nontrivial to inherit anything more than a Grimmjow or a Vritra over. In a farming context, especially with Ame's second Skill Boost, this should not represent an issueof the time, but is a weakness that still must be acknowledged.
In her fire form, this card is basically completely inferior to Revo Leilan, falling behind in stats, active, leader skill, everything. There aren't many places where you'd need a red OE stick like this who otherwise brings very little | 3,540,617 |
to a team. Furthermore, her weighted stat total is absolutely disappointing given her rarity, betraying her status as a very old card.The color-swapped light form shown above, though, is a bit more interesting by virtue of both a color in which the card thrives more, and due to actually having a SBR,. This actually makes Leilan the only evolved holiday Chinese girl to have a SBR, which, while not exactly a claim to fame, does make her modestly usable. She will of course always face competition from the amazing Paimon as an OE stick, but does perform comparatively better than her red counterpart.Neither form is really great anywhere. This is due in large part to the aforementioned terrible weighted stats for a collab roll of this rarity. The red form has no place on most teams, as red leaders other than Enra are currently quite poor and Enra simply doesn't need something like this. Red-focused combo teams (ex. Blue Hunter with Enras) will also not benefit from an OE stick and would much more greatly appreciate an additional damaging sub with good stats and a strong individual damage contribution. The light form faresbetter and is usable on teams such as Light Hera Dragon, though is still rarely the best option.Both forms of NY Leilan have the same mediocre leader skill. 49x on a sparkle with no associated tankiness is simply too crappy in today's game, and only newer players will really get any use out of this. One small plus to newer players is that the lead brings so many OEs that they will not have to search elsewhere for them and can freely teambuild or explore non-mirror leader pairings. Ultimately this is still a consolation prize, as her leader skill is still... poor. (At least it's better than Hanzo's.)A normal Leilan board. Tricolors are always solid actives to have around, even without any additional effect, and this is no exception. For a long time this was my only Leilan board, and so she actually saw a fair amount of usage due to that alone. NY Leilan's active is probably the most generally useful part of her.
Is the first card we've looked at withthan 750 or so weighted? I think it might be. Man, screw this REM.An okay stat lineup and nice supportive awakenings are the nice features of our favorite dung beetle goddess. A total of +10% team HP and three handy Time Extend awakenings can definitely have their uses. She fails to bring much to the table otherwise, though. There are more meaningful ways get Time Extends, and Khepri doesn't bring any truly useful utility awakenings (such as bind clear or FUA). Furthermore, she has no offensive awakenings and very unremarkable latent killer options, limiting the actual usability of her good Attack stat. The net result is that Khepri isa good sub, but lacks any kind of truly coherent identity or defining features to make her shine on any particular kind of team. Here's to a round of buffs the next time this machine comes back.Most of the time, Awoken Raphael is by far the best choice for leader skills like this. NY Khepri, though, is mildly interesting in that she does manage to strike a balance between decent power and decent usability, as her orbs-remaining count is much easier to achieve than Raphael's. Still, leader skills like this aren't truly plausible without some kind of tank multiplier and this is no exception.This is identical to normal Khepri's active and is a fairly average, unremarkable +2c. Usable, straightforward, and not particularly standout, just like a lot of the other stuff in this machine.
Though the stat lineup initially looks about as miserable as any of the other rolls in this machine, NY Yamato is actually respectable as a red farming sub. He isn't good enough proportional to its rarity that most players, even farmers, should be specifically rolling for him, but does manage to pull his weight and shine in farming setups due to his third skill boost.Note that the Super Awakenings will not generally be incredibly impactful as you will almost be using this card in coop and so, without Multi Boost, Tsubaki does the double Dragon Killer thing much better. The other Super Awakenings are nice but not notable.Again, a solid red farming sub. Yamato can make a substantial damage contribution on a fire farming team, even if he's not quite as powerful as Tsubaki. The real selling point, though, is his three Skill Boosts. Having a strong on-color option for Skill Boosts is uncommon for fire teams, and is one reason that unawoken Yamato is in reasonably high demand. NY Yamato manages to outshine this in most ways by carrying three Skill Boosts as well but having more damage, even to non-Dragons, despite the loss of fire sub-attribute. NY Yamato, just like his pantheon counterpart, is on-type for the most accessible red lead, Glavenus | 3,540,618 |
Hunter Does any of this make him? No, not significantly more than regular Yamato can be considered to be "necessary" (and he's not). Again, this isn't good enough to be rolling for and isn't gamebreaking (certainly not as much as, say, Glavenus Hunter herself was) but is quite nice to have around as a farming option in case you did manage to roll him.Yamato is moderately usable as a sub non-farming teams, but he is definitely not as standout for this and there's a good chance that what you'd actually want or benefit more from is Tsubaki herself.Definitely not what you want to be using him for. Please just use the pixel starters instead if you're considering this. Pixel Tyrannos is better than this, I promise.Same as regular unawoken Yamato, this is a viable inherit where the dual duty is helpful, such as on an Enra or Diara team. Nothing too special or nuanced here.
Eeee, Eeeeeee!It's kind of shocking that even cards this high up in rarity can have such proportionally bad weighted stats. This is a strange case, because on the one hand, Multi Boost is definitely a mitigating factor and can make up for poor stats to some extent, giving Horus actually very respectable weighted afterwards along with a decent distribution.This is where it gets tricky, though. One reason to use NY Horus is his lineup of pretty good Super Awakenings, including a second Skill Boost+, effectively giving him four Skill Boosts. 7c isn't too shabby either. So what's the problem? Well, Super Awakenings are solo only, so taking advantage of any of them involves giving up the awakening that gives Horus a non-trash stat lineup. It's an odd design choice on GungHo's part to end up making a card that can never really reach the full extent of its power. If NY Horus could have both Multi Boost and four effective Skill Boosts, he'd probably be totally phenomenal. Unfortunately, as it is now, he really fails to shine anywhere and doesn't offer anything exceptional.This isn't as bad as some of the other garbage we've seen in this collab so far, but it's just really outdated. There's absolutely no way in which this stands up to the likes of Iori, and simply provides too little rewards for the effort it takes to activate. Fun, though.Full board enhances are useful primarily in farming situations, as they are typically either not high impact enough or not efficient enough to be worth a slot on a regular team. This one has a reasonably low cooldown and potentially beneficial secondary effect, and so is an acceptable choice for such an active.
Kamimusubi [ Sub: B- | Lead: A | Assist: B+ | Overall: A- ]
HP: 4238 | ATK: 1885 | RCV: 338 | WT: 913 | God/Balance LS: 5x ATK when HP is 80% or more, 2.5x ATK when HP is 79% or less; 3.5x ATK, 25% reduced damage when Fire & Light attack at once. [1/306.25/1, 43.75% shield] AS: Change bottom-most row to Heal Orbs; recovers 30% of max HP; recovers Bind state by 3 turns. [CD: 7]
Overview. This card probably reminds you of regular
Sub. If there's somewhere you want red Super FUA, utility, and fire rows, this is actually pretty strong.
... unfortunately, that's basically nowhere meaningful these days. This is honestly a shame, since I would legitimately like her awakening setup a lot if it were, you know, at all relevant. She ultimately ends up being one of those subs that's not bad on paper but lacks a good home in practice. Maybe someday rows will come back and red will have more than like two decent leaders.
Lead. Though obviously powerful, many players are having a hard time evaluating exactly how good NY Kami's leader skill really is. On the one hand, her subpool is extensive, and GungHo has been forever pushing fire/light archetypes. Currently, light also has some of the best subs in the game, with cards like
On the flip side, and I think this is what confuses many players, NY Kamimusubi seems to lack a clear identity, or at least a coherently powerful one. Extremely easy activation and the immediate parallel to regular Kami imply the same combo-oriented playstyle that minimizes orb hunger and maximizes reliability. GungHo's choice to give a handful of fire rows and a Super FUA, though, is fundamentally confusing. Again, this is obviously a good leader, but how are we supposed to be playing her?
I've given this a bunch of thought and have arrived at two conclusions: Ignore the fire rows | 3,540,619 |
entirely. (To a lesser extent, ignore the Super FUA as well.) Normally, there's nothing inherently wrong about playing a two-color activation leader with a row focus, as it's not overwhelmingly hard to get orbs and this damage multiplier in particular is enormous. The factor that ultimately limits the plausibility of running this as a fire row lead is the HP conditional. There's no good way to stall for six fire orbs, and so activation that would ordinarily be just slightly inconvenient is now almost entirely implausible. Additionally, you'll find that if you build for rows, you'll get substantially overkill damage when actually matching the row, but not quite enough if you simply combo with three fires. (If you really want to use Super FUA, it's not the absolute worst on NY Kami specifically because she has significant heart generation on a very low cooldown. Finding a regular FUA for your team is still proably a better bet overall though.) Don't run this as a red lead if your box can't support it. It's okay to go off-color. Just as regular Kami is often run with wood subs due to the power of cards like Ragnarok Dragon and Green Ney, it's perfectly viable to run NY Kami with some light subs if that is what your box is suited for. Even though NY Kami doesn't have an active as perfectly suited for her as forms,
It's worth noting that Mai Shiranui (4089), from the King of Fighters collab, is a great 7x6 pairing option for NY Kami, as in addition to boosting all the right colors, her very short active can be easily inherited over (perhaps with an impactful board change or full heal). This alone gives her a huge edge over the ubiquitous
Assist. You know, when I first heard about NY Kamimusubi I thought the active was going to be as ridiculously specialized as normal Kami's and therefore not be worth inheriting at all anywhere, but this pleasantly surprised me. It's still pretty specialized, don't get me wrong, but there are actually plausible uses for this outside of Kami herself.
For instance, this active is an exceptionally clean way to generate six hearts for
This is of course a really specific example, but the idea is there. Because this active's cooldown is so low and its secondary effects are so much more impactful than ordinary Kami's strange enhanced orb skyfall buff, it's a viable way to deal with some of the challenges that a HP conditional team might face.
↑ This card probably reminds you of regular Kamimusubi. The leader skills are highly similar, of course, but if you look closely, many small differences start to be apparent in how these cards function. Ultimately, neither ends up being unequivocally better than the other (though Super FUA is, as always, bizarre and a bit awkward) and it does come down to what kind of box you have.If there's somewhere you want red Super FUA, utility, and fire rows, this is actually pretty strong.... unfortunately, that's basically nowhere meaningful these days. This is honestly a shame, since I would legitimately like her awakening setup a lot if it were, you know, at all relevant. She ultimately ends up being one of those subs that's not bad on paper but lacks a good home in practice. Maybe someday rows will come back and red will have more than like two decent leaders.Though obviously powerful, many players are having a hard time evaluating exactly how good NY Kami's leader skill really is. On the one hand, her subpool is extensive, and GungHo has beenpushing fire/light archetypes. Currently, light also has some of the best subs in the game, with cards like Yuna capable of tearing many competitors to pieces, and generally has superior -- or at least vastly more diverse -- pixel options as well. (Omega Rugal offsets this slightly, being both powerful and farmable, but is still only one additional option compared to the like six that light has.)On the flip side, and I think this is what confuses many players, NY Kamimusubi seems to lack a clear identity, or at least a coherently powerful one. Extremely easy activation and the immediate parallel to regular Kami imply the same combo-oriented playstyle that minimizes orb hunger and maximizes reliability. GungHo's choice to give a handful of fire rows and a Super FUA, though, is fundamentally. Again, this is obviously a good leader, but how are we supposed to be playing her?I've given this a bunch of thought and have arrived at two conclusions:Even though NY Kami doesn't have an active as perfectly suited for her as Halloween Verdandi is for vanilla Kami, she does win out in Saria, her best board change active, being significantly more accessible than any of ordinary Kami's preferred options. Since you do need a FUA option, it's not inconceivable to simply | 3,540,620 |
sub Saria as well if you don't have one of the truly powerful but much harder to obtain alternatives. Other potential sub options include Yuna, Ilm Light Ilmina (or Christmas Ilmina), Tachibana Paimon, one of the Cotton Enra, etc. If she ever comes to NA, Light Sonia will be a fantastic inherit (she is inheritable despite what padx says). Note again that most of these are not perfectly synergistic in terms of the HP conditional and do not heal you directly, so full heal inherits such as Amaterasu and careful management of Kami's base active are important.It's worth noting that Mai Shiranui (4089), from the King of Fighters collab, is a great 7x6 pairing option for NY Kami, as in addition to boosting all the right colors, her very short active can be easily inherited over (perhaps with an impactful board change or full heal). This alone gives her a huge edge over the ubiquitous Diablos You know, when I first heard about NY Kamimusubi I thought the active was going to be as ridiculously specialized as normal Kami's and therefore not be worth inheriting at all anywhere, but this pleasantly surprised me. It's stillspecialized, don't get me wrong, but there are actually plausible uses for this outside of Kami herself.For instance, this active is an exceptionally clean way to generate six hearts for Yog kill teams in 3P UDR to make either a FUA or a 3x3 block with. Yog is, of course, most afraid of taking unrecoverable damage before the boss floor, and occasionally, whether due to a lack of communication, player error, or simply bad luck, you'll be put in a position where you have 30% HP and only one Yog active available on the boss floor. Traditionally, this has a pretty good chance of leading to your death or the death of your partners (or both). With Kami as your heart maker, though, you get a powerful 30% heal on top, significantly reducing the threat of this scenario and enabling you to possibly use a Yog active more flexibly on earlier floors, increasing the reliability and flexibility of your team.This is of course a really specific example, but the idea is there. Because this active's cooldown is so low and its secondary effects are so much more impactful than ordinary Kami's strange enhanced orb skyfall buff, it's a viable way to deal with some of the challenges that a HP conditional team might face.
Tsukuyomi [ Sub: A- | Lead: B | Assist: B- | Overall: A- ]
HP: 4572 | ATK: 1736 | RCV: 325 | WT: 912 | God/Balance LS: 4x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced; 3x ATK & 25% reduced damage when 6+ combos. [1/144/1, 43.75% shield] AS: Enhance all Orbs' power; Increase time to move Orbs by 5 secs for 3 turns. [CD: 8]
Overview. NY Yomi was one of the game's first 7c cards when she was released last year. How times have changed since then! She's still pretty good currently with her new ultimate evolution, but is much less unique than she was upon initial release.
Sub. Light now has another double 7c sub for its already massive collection! She's nothing gamebreaking or irreplaceable, but that doesn't make her bad at all. Her Balance typing further augments her role as a damage threat by allowing her to take any kind of latent killer. It's worth noting as well that while her damage isn't top of the line, she has the best HP of any double 7c light card in NA except for
Yomi's main weakness is that she doesn't specifically do anything particularly well and isn't the best at anything. While this is a non-issue for players who have limited access to top-tier sub options, players who do have more fleshed out boxes will often find that Yuna provides more damage and healing, Tachibana has a stellar base active,
Lead. NY Yomi's leader skill combines a combo-friendly playstyle with straightforward activation and a respectable shield. For a variety of reasons, sparkle leads are not preferred in truly difficult content; that said, this is one of the better ones out there. This will never be a stronger leader skill than the likes of
Assist. As with NY Horus above, a perfectly average enhance active. Nothing too much to discuss here, though it does happen to work well with her leader skill.
↑ NY Yomi was one of the game's first 7c cards when she was released last year. How times have changed since then! She's still pretty good currently with her new ultimate evolution, but is much less unique than | 3,540,621 |
she was upon initial release.Light now has another double 7c sub for its already massive collection! She's nothing gamebreaking or irreplaceable, but that doesn't make her bad at all. Her Balance typing further augments her role as a damage threat by allowing her to take any kind of latent killer. It's worth noting as well that while her damage isn't top of the line, she has the best HP of any double 7c light card in NA except for Light Ney, and if this is a priority she is a serious consideration over something squishier like Tachibana or Yuna Yomi's main weakness is that she doesn't specifically do anything particularly well and isn't the best at anything. While this is a non-issue for players who have limited access to top-tier sub options, players who do have more fleshed out boxes will often find that Yuna provides more damage and healing, Tachibana has a stellar base active, Light Cotton has FUA, Light Ideal trades TE for being standout in every other way, etc. Being well-rounded in PAD is not always beneficial. Still, on the whole Yomi is a great sub for light-focused combo teams and most players should be happy to roll her.NY Yomi's leader skill combines a combo-friendly playstyle with straightforward activation and a respectable shield. For a variety of reasons, sparkle leads are not preferred in truly difficult content; that said, this is one of the better ones out there. This will never be a stronger leader skill than the likes of Blue Hunter in coop, but for content that's not the very top of the line it's a perfectly viable and fun option. Prioritize subs with Time Extend and 7c, since your leads will already be bringing sufficient amounts of OE. Unconditional teambuilding and ease of use give NY Yomi a great deal of flexibility as well. Ultimately, while she isn't the most powerful of leaders, she's cute, fun, and easily viable enough to plow through all but the hardest dungeons.As with NY Horus above, a perfectly average enhance active. Nothing too much to discuss here, though it does happen to work well with her leader skill.
Kanna [ Sub: B+ | Lead: B- | Assist: C- | Overall: B ]
HP: 4078 | ATK: 2100 | RCV: 403 | WT: 962 | Dragon/God LS: 4x ATK & 1.5x RCV for Dragon & God Type; 2x ATK & 50% reduced damage when matching a Heart cross. [1/64/2.25, 75% shield] AS: 2x ATK for God & Dragon Type for 2 turns; Other allies' skills charge by 1 turn. [CD: 10]
Overview. NY Kanna's quite an old card, but she's managed to age relatively well compared to
Sub. Kanna's sub usage is really quite straightforward: do massive damage with TPAs. Her Super Awakenings represent more interesting but equally straightforward choices: do you want even more damage or do you want team utility? Once upon a time, this was one of the most desired subs in the game for both
Lead. Kanna's effective tankiness here is substantial, and we have seen time and time again that tanky leads with slightly poorer damage multipliers can grind through surprisingly difficult content simply by not dying. Two factors hold Kanna back, though: typing requirement and heart cross matching. The tank multiplier is great; the unreliability of the tank multiplier is not. Heart cross was fine back in Myr era, back when it was overwhelmingly the most powerful mechanic and thus worthwhile to try to compensate for that inherent unreliability. Now, there are simply better options. Even though this leader skill is easily viable through Arena 3 (especially if you're lucky enough to have a reliable Christmas Ilmina friend to pair with), it's probably not worth your time unless you really miss the heart cross meta.
Assist. While it technically has a useful effect, this active is honestly quite pathetic for 10 turns and should not be considered for usage on any serious team unless it is your only option.
↑ NY Kanna's quite an old card, but she's managed to age relatively well compared to certain other old collab rolls. Her upcoming Super Awakenings really enhance her viability and help give her a more unique identity, either as a five-TPA powerhouse of a sniper or as a still solid FUA option. This isn't to say she's necessarily great or worth rolling for, but she's usable if you do happen to get her.Kanna's sub usage is really quite straightforward: do massive damage with TPAs. Her Super Awakenings represent more interesting but equally straightforward choices: do you want even more damage or do you want team utility? Once upon a time, this was one of the most desired subs in the game for both Myr | 3,540,622 |
After having been invited several times, ONE OK ROCK was finally able to perform at DEAD POP FESTiVAL, a music festival organized by the band SiM. This would become my first festival and my second time seeing ONE OK ROCK live.
ONE OK ROCK was scheduled to perform at 6:10PM at the main Cave Stage. My friends and I took positions after MAN WITH A MISSION finished and chose a spot near the right side of the white staff tent. There were a lot of people both in front and behind us, and excitement heightened as the clock struck closer to the start time. Thank goodness the sun was beginning to set because it was a hot day.
Cheers erupted when the artist introduction video began, and that is also when people began pushing forward. We had no choice but to be pushed along. Before it started, my friends and I tried to predict which song they would open with. My guess was Taking Off and I was correct.
Taka wore a green Nirvana shirt, which seemed kind of rare. His hair was short and spiked, just how I like it. Taking Off isn’t such a high tempo song so I was actually able to see Taka most of the time. The audience sang along, of course.
Next up, cue the intoxicating bass of Deeper Deeper, and oh man, the pushing! It was worse than a packed train during rush hour. I couldn’t really move, not freely at least, and it took a lot of energy to keep from being knocked over. Needless to say, I couldn’t see a thing. At times I couldn’t hear Taka much either because the people around me were so close and they were also singing. Of course I sang too. At the end of the song Taka let out a really long shout. I couldn’t see him but I definitely heard him. It was glorious.
The next song was I Was King. To be honest, I’m not too sure why they chose this song. It’s not a very festival-like song. I think something like Cry out would have been better. We were pretty much singing along the entire time already, but as is customary, Taka had us sing the middle chorus by ourselves.
After, a familiar piano intro started playing, Taka said that he was glad that they could finally perform at this festival which was created by their friends, and that he wanted to see the scenery that they had created. No matter how many times The Beginning is played, it never gets tiring. Taka’s vocals were on point, as always. He climbed up the support frame of the right side of the stage and sang a couple verses from up high. It was during the middle of this song that my friend and I were finally able to escape the pushing crowd and get to an area farther off to the right which had some more open space. Thank God because the next song was Mighty Long Fall, and you just know that Taka is going to call for a wall of death during it. …And call for a wall of death he did. Taka made the “separate” gesture with his arms and even though by that time my friend and I were fairly over to the right, we still had to move back in order to avoid getting caught. That’s how big it must have been. Taka ended the song with a couple spectacular shouts of “don’t go.”
Before the next song, Taka talked about how he and SiM met. They didn’t hit it off right away but after talking to them for a while, Taka realized that they had a lot of similarities. Taka also explained why he was wearing green that day. Back when he first met MAH, MAH often wore green shirts so Taka had that in mind when choosing the day’s outfit, but when he looked over at MAH who was sitting at the side of the stage watching, MAH was wearing black, haha. Oops. (MAH would later comment on Taka’s Instagram that night saying that he’ll match shirt colors with Taka next time if he’s told ahead of time, LoL.)
Taka called on the crowd to sing along if they knew the next song, We are. There were so many OORers in the audience that the song echoed throughout the field. I’m really not sure if he does it on purpose but just like at Tokyo Dome (and perhaps the other Dome performances?), Taka switched the lyrics from the Japanese version to the English one once again. The first Japanese part of the song was sung in Japanese but the rest of the song was in English… It’s very odd. Taka really dragged out the “you” in the “now here to hold you” part near the end of | 3,540,623 |
the song which was an unexpected surprise since I don’t think he’s ever done that before.
The last song was predictably Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer. People started crowding again when it started but it wasn’t nearly as bad as earlier in the set when my friend and I were utterly sandwiched between people with nowhere to go. The audience sang every word of the song, some parts more loudly than others, and it’s always a great experience when you can sing with everyone.
That was the end of ONE OK ROCK’s set, but Taka made an appearance again at the very end of the day. Before SiM’s encore, MAH called all the performers out onto the stage to take a photo. Taka had changed into a black DPF shirt and black shorts and wore a black cap. One of the guys from MAN WITH A MISSION was in front of him as he was coming out, and it was cute how Taka playfully started petting the top of the wolf mask from behind.
Before SiM’s very last song, MAH talked about how there’s a ONE OK ROCK song called Skyfall and said that the people who were expecting it to be sung probably didn’t look at Crossfaith’s schedule because those guys were in Spain. Still, he wanted to do something special so he called Taka and Masato out onto the stage, and they all sang SiM’s song f.a.i.t.h together. I’m not familiar with the song but oh myyyyyyy Taka’s shouts! I don’t know what to say other than WOW. Taka can be an absolute beast when he shouts. He held it for pretty long too. Taka was wearing his cap when he came out on stage but he was head banging so hard that he took it off almost immediately. They sang the song twice because apparently that’s what SiM always does. (It’s a short song.) After the first time, Masato had climbed down from the stage, and Taka called him back up saying, “Sorry Masato, I know you went through the trouble of going down there, but let’s do it one more time.” Taka then added that he didn’t feel like he had sung at all, and the song started over again. Taka seemed to put even more energy into the shouts the second time around. I’m not even sure if you can call these shouts… They’re more borderline screams. Personally it wasn’t my type of song since I’m not into screamo music but oh man, Taka was incredible. I’m always amazed by his talent.
And thus ended the first day of DEAD POP FESTiVAL 2018. It had already gotten dark and was much cooler than it was during the day. Some final notes and random thoughts… I spotted Taka and Tomoya watching Coldrain’s last song from the side of the stage. Tomoya was sitting down whereas Taka was standing. He wore a white sweater, but it was so hot out that I don’t know how he could wear long sleeves. Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly but he was definitely wearing white, and a white cap too. I watched SiM from the back but my friends who were in with the main crowd mentioned that people around them were mumbling about how short Taka was. ^^; Watching people rush into the moshes was kind of cool but it’s definitely not something I would want to be caught in myself. Looking at the monitor, the crowd seemed a lot farther away from the stage than we actually were. Even from the back I could see fairly well, and it was a lot closer than, say, the back of the arena of a regular concert. I guess things just look farther on camera. There were people wearing the new white ONE OK ROCK shirts that were sold for the first time at this festival and I was wondering how some of them could be so brown already, but I guess it makes sense when you consider how much people were sweating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few fell in the dirt. It was pretty gross to see though, LoL.
Oh, and there were a lot of ONE OK ROCK fans. I would say over half the people in attendance either had a OOR shirt on or if they didn’t, at least had wristbands on their bag or something. MAH mentioned that it was the first time both days of the festival were sold out and that it must have been due to OOR, but then he backtracked, saying that Sunday (which didn’t feature OOR) was also sold out. Um, I think he may have forgotten that they didn’ | 3,540,624 |
The diplomat who said 'No' to Saudi oil Round the bend
Tales from Britain's rule in India and beyond Published duration 8 November 2014
image copyright National Portrait Gallery, London image caption Sir Lancelot Oliphant photographed by Bassano in July 1939
Hindsight can be cruel. In 1932, amid a global economic slump, the impoverished Saudis came to London looking for a loan. They also had an offer: would Britain like to try drilling for oil? A disdainful Foreign Office mandarin gave the fateful reply, writes Matthew Teller - no loan, and no drilling.
In the spring of 1932, King Abdulaziz - widely known as "Ibn Saud" - was ready to declare the foundation of a new united Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To get the message out and to secure the support of the global superpower - Great Britain - he sent his son, Faisal, on a European tour including London.
Faisal arrived at Dover on Saturday 7 May and was soon installed in London's fashionable new Dorchester Hotel. After a Monday morning audience with George V, he spent most of his visit at leisure, including visits to a Surrey stud farm and RAF Hendon.
It was the King's personal adviser, Fuad Bey Hamza, who had to raise the delicate question of money with a senior civil servant at the Foreign Office - Sir Lancelot Oliphant.
Revenue from pilgrims visiting Mecca was sharply down. Oil had been discovered in neighbouring Persia and Mesopotamia (Iran and Iraq), but geologists doubted whether Arabia held any reserves.
Hamza asked for a loan.
In reply, Oliphant talked of "difficulties in this time of most stringent economy".
Hamza said Ibn Saud sought only £500,000 in gold (several tens of millions of pounds in today's money). Oliphant responded that he would consult the relevant department.
They moved on to other matters, but then Hamza brought up money again.
Ibn Saud "looked to His Majesty's Government for material as well as moral support", said Hamza. An American engineer had compiled a report on Arabia's mineral resources, but Ibn Saud "always preferred to deal with the British, and would welcome the assistance of British firms in exploiting the mineral resources of his country".
Yet again, Oliphant chose to slam an open door. He replied that "British firms might hesitate to accept a report not drawn up by a British expert", and expressed doubt "as to the readiness of British firms to sink capital in a little-known country at the present time".
A wry note added to the minutes at this point by an unknown hand reads: "Nothing venture, nothing have!"
image copyright British Library
The language then turned rather undiplomatic. Hamza called the rejection "a great personal grief and disappointment", adding that he had "no alternative but to look elsewhere" - whereupon Oliphant interrupted his guest to "assure him that it was a matter of great regret to His Majesty's Government also".
Within 72 hours Faisal and Hamza had departed from Croydon aerodrome on the long journey home.
Oliphant was no fool. In a glittering career at the Foreign Office he guided British relations with Persia and Arabia for more than 30 years, rising to a wartime ambassadorship. His stance, though possibly over-cautious and imbued with colonial high-handedness, made perfect sense at the time.
So his emotions at the news of 31 May, that American prospectors had struck oil in Bahrain - off the Saudi coast - just two weeks after he had sent the Saudis packing, can only be imagined.
Within a year Ibn Saud handed the concession to search for Saudi oil to an American consortium - and in 1938 they discovered the world's largest reserves of crude. Saudi Arabia was "a little-known country" no longer, and the US had begun supplanting British power in the Gulf.
image copyright Getty Images image caption Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud (fifth from right) in Paris in March 1939
In the words of British Library historian Mark Hobbs, who has researched the 1932 London meetings: "It was one visit that officials probably wanted to forget."
Click here to see the originals of the documents referred to above:
UPDATE: In : In Round the Bend last week Matthew Teller told the story of an India Office agent in Gwadar who infuriated his boss, Maj George Murphy, by signing off letters with the words "Love to Patrick". Archivists were puzzled. Who was Patrick? But in the last few days the British Library's Martin Woodward has found a letter that appears to provide the answer
image copyright British Library
(folio 133 in file IOR/R/15/6/373) | 3,540,625 |
Mostly black minors requested to be prosecuted as adults, a WNYC analysis found when comparing the US juvenile detention system with that in Germany
This article is more than 3 years old
This article is more than 3 years old
When Jamal was 14, he wore the same outfit to school everyday. One day in Union, New Jersey, he went looking for a way to get money.
“I seen a guy and I had a gun on me so I robbed him,” Jamal said. “I carjacked him for his car keys, and I robbed him for his wallet, phone and money.”
Jamal never shot the gun, but he did point it at the man he robbed. Tried as an adult, he got nine years in an adult prison.
“My record as a juvenile kept showing violent crimes, so I guess they just got tired of me,” Jamal said.
Kids in Prison: Germany has a different approach, better results. By WNYC’s Sarah Gonzalez.
Minors in New Jersey who commit crimes like robbery, drug trafficking or homicide can be tried as adults. But that only happens at a prosecutor’s request. And according to an analysis by WNYC Radio, most of their requests are for black minors, like Jamal.
Getting tried as an adult depends on your race
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Minors prosecuted as adults in New Jersey. Source: Administrative Office of the Courts, New Jersey from 1 July 2011 through 19 May 2016. Photograph: Clarisa Diaz/WNYC Data News Team
Minors in some other countries – like Germany, which WNYC visited – never get such long sentences for robbery, and would never be prosecuted as adults. But it is allowed in every US state.
In New Jersey, court data obtained by WNYC found 692 minors tried as adults in the past five years. The youngest were 14 years old when charged. Almost 90% are black or Latino.
Not all were found guilty and not all went to prison, but WNYC found at least 152 inmates still in adult prisons today for crimes they committed as minors in the past five years. The most common crime? Robbery.
Laura Cohen, director of the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School, says white children commit the same crimes as black children. National research shows prosecutors do not seek to try white children as adults at the same rates.
As of 1 March 2016, minors convicted as adults in New Jersey have to be placed in juvenile facilities until they’re at least 18. But the law is not retroactive. And minors in the state can still end up with adult records and sentences – which are longer than juvenile sentences.
Can the US handle short prison sentences?
New York has a separate sentencing scheme for minors convicted as adults with shorter minimum terms. The minimum sentence a 15-year-old in New York can get is one year for robbery or five years for murder. In New Jersey, the minimums are 8 ½ and 25 ½ years, respectively.
In both states, the maximum penalty is life in prison – and some crime victim families say that’s fair. But research has found that long sentences don’t deter juveniles from re-offending any more than short sentences.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Comparing the number of young people in prison in New Jersey v New York. Source: NY state penal law, New Jersey superior court. Photograph: Clarisa Diaz/WNYC Data News Team
Still, American society has long resisted judges who hand down short sentences, noted Vincent Schiraldi, a criminal justice policy expert at Harvard University.
“So we passed a bunch of mandatory sentences that take that power away from those loosey-goose judges,” he said. “Bit by bit everybody gets more and more time, and then we have a system that is very reliant on prisons rather than rehabilitation.”
Schiraldi argues even young adults should be protected from adult records.
“They’re more susceptible to peer pressure, they’re more volatile in emotionally charged settings, they’re less future oriented, and all of that stuff matters from the standpoint of committing crimes,” Schiraldi said.
Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University, says raising the age of criminal adulthood would be expensive. Juvenile facilities cost more because they offer more rehabilitative services.
In Germany, a belief that people can change
In Germany, people who commit crimes under age 21 can be treated as juveniles, and the longest sentence a minor can get is 10 years.
“He’s still a 14- or 15-year-old boy even if he killed another person,” says Jorg Jesse, who runs prisons in Meck | 3,540,626 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — An exhausted Senate gave pre-dawn approval Saturday to a Democratic $3.7 trillion budget for next year that embraces nearly $1 trillion in tax increases over the coming decade but shelters domestic programs targeted for cuts by House Republicans.
While their victory was by a razor-thin 50-49, the vote let Democrats tout their priorities. Yet it doesn't resolve the deep differences the two parties have over deficits and the size of government.
Joining all Republicans voting no were four Democrats who face re-election next year in potentially difficult races: Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote.
The vote came after lawmakers labored through the night on scores of symbolic amendments, ranging from voicing support for letting states collect taxes on Internet sales to expressing opposition to requiring photo ID's for voters.
The Senate's budget would shrink annual federal shortfalls over the next decade to nearly $400 billion, raise unspecified taxes by $975 billion and cull modest savings from domestic programs.
In contrast, a rival budget approved by the GOP-run House balances the budget within 10 years without boosting taxes.
That blueprint— by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., his party's vice presidential candidate last year — claims $4 trillion more in savings over the period than Senate Democrats by digging deeply into Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs for the needy. It would also transform the Medicare health care program for seniors into a voucher-like system for future recipients.
"We have presented very different visions for how our country should work and who it should work for," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Budget Committee. "But I am hopeful that we can bridge this divide."
A day that stretched roughly 20 hours featured brittle debate at times. The loudest moment came toward the end, when senators rose as one to cheer a handful of Senate pages — high school students — who lawmakers said had worked in the chamber since the morning's opening gavel. Senators then left town for a two-week spring recess.
Story continues
Congressional budgets are planning documents that leave actual changes in revenues and spending for later legislation, and this was the first the Democratic-run Senate has approved in four years. That lapse is testament to the political and mathematical contortions needed to write fiscal plans in an era of record-breaking deficits that until this year exceeded an eye-popping $1 trillion annually, and to the parties' profoundly conflicting views.
"I believe we're in denial about the financial condition of our country," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, top Republican on the Budget panel, said of Democratic efforts to boost spending on some programs. "Trust me, we've got to have some spending reductions."
Though budget shortfalls have shown signs of easing slightly and temporarily, there is no easy path for the two parties to find compromise — which the first months of 2013 have amply illustrated.
Already this year, Congress has raised taxes on the rich after narrowly averting tax boosts on virtually everyone else, tolerated $85 billion in automatic spending cuts, temporarily sidestepped a federal default and prevented a potential government shutdown.
By sometime this summer, the government's borrowing limit will have to be extended again — or a default will be at risk — and it is unclear what Republicans may demand for providing needed votes. It is also uncertain how the two parties will resolve the differences between their two budgets, something many believe simply won't happen.
Both sides have expressed a desire to reduce federal deficits. But President Barack Obama is demanding a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to do so, while GOP leaders say they won't consider higher revenues but want serious reductions in Medicare and other benefit programs that have rocketed deficits skyward.
Obama plans to release his own 2014 budget next month, an unveiling that will be studied for whether it signals a willingness to engage Republicans in negotiations or play political hardball.
The amendments senators considered during their long day of debate were all non-binding, but some delivered potent political messages.
They voted in favor of giving states more powers to collect sales taxes on online purchases their citizens make from out-of-state Internet companies, and to endorse the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is to pump oil from Canada to Texas refineries.
They also voted to voiced support for eliminating the $2,500 annual cap on flexible spending account contributions imposed by Obama's health care overhaul, and for charging regular postal rates for mailings by political parties, which currently qualify for the lower prices paid by non-profits.
In a rebuke to one of the Senate's most conservative members, they overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to cut even deeper than the House GOP budget and | 3,540,627 |
An apocalyptic view of Islamist terrorism is the thread that connects key figures in the Trump administration and underpins this weekend’s immigration chaos. But is their ramped-up rhetoric just giving terrorists what they want?
It was the moment the world sat up and started to take notice of the US presidential campaign. Donald Trump had made headlines before, in June 2015, when he had called for a “great, great wall” along the Mexican border. Back then, he was hovering around ninth place in a crowded field of Republican candidates. But by 7 December, when he released a short statement calling for the “total and complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration, he was the frontrunner for his party’s nomination. His message, that Islam itself was a threat to America, was heard loud and clear across the globe, not least by 1.6 billion Muslims.
Now, as president, he appears to be following through. On Friday he stunned us again by announcing that citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries – encompassing around 220 million people – would be barred from entering the US for 90 days. On Sunday, his long-time ally, Rudy Giuliani, traced the order back to a conversation about the “Muslim ban” in which Trump asked him to “show me the right way to do it legally”. While commentators have had their work cut out trying to follow the twists and turns of Trump’s logic on everything from climate change to the CIA, on this issue his attitude has been consistent. If there is a Trump doctrine, “war on Islam” has to be a strong contender.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump with Rudy Giuliani, whom the president asked how to ‘legally’ create a Muslim ban. Photograph: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
An apocalyptic view of Islamist terrorism is the thread that connects many of his appointments, be they military men, Breitbarters or TV pundits. National security adviser Michael Flynn has written: “I’m totally convinced that, without a proper sense of urgency, we will be eventually defeated, dominated, and very likely destroyed,” adding: “Do you want to be ruled by men who eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies?”
Flynn’s deputy, KT Macfarland argued that, without American leadership, global jihadism will “usher in its version of paradise – the destruction of the apostates and unbelievers and the triumph of the caliphate”. National Security Council member Sebastian Gorka wrote: “America is now in a threat environment that makes some … look back wistfully at the cold-war years when the only real threat was the spread of communism”. Today, the official Trump platform includes the pledge: “We will defeat the ideology of radical Islamic terrorism just as we won the cold war.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stephen Bannon: ‘We are “at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism” Photograph: Andrew Harrer/EPA
Steve Bannon, the man whom many regard as the ideological linchpin of the administration, believes we are “at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism”. In a surprise move at the weekend, Bannon was appointed to the council, the principal body advising the president on foreign policy and intelligence.
Members of that team differ in the extent to which they distinguish between Islam and violent distortions of it. Before his appointment to the administration, Flynn, for example, tweeted a YouTube video with the title “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL” from his verified account. The tweet has not been deleted. In contrast, special assistant to the president, Derek Harvey, believes that “the threat is the extremist interpretation of Islam”. Macfarland has written: “Not all the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are extremists or terrorists. Not by a long shot.” However, she warns that “even if just 10% of 1% are radicalised, that’s a staggering 1.6 million people bent on destroying western civilization”. One 2014 estimate put the number of active jihadists at between 85,000 and 106,000 – or around 0.006% of all Muslims.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Flynn: ‘Do you want to be ruled by men who eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies?’ Photograph: Andrew Harrer/EPA
Trump’s own understanding of Islam appears to be superficial. “I’ve had good instincts in life, and a lot of this is instinct,” he told the Washington Post last year. It’s also the influence of men including Frank Gaffney, whose thinktank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), briefed Trump on sharia law before the crucial Iowa caucuses in February 2016. The CSP believes that “American civil and political society is | 3,540,628 |
under systematic, sustained and seditious assault – a ‘Stealth Jihad’ – by adherents to Shariah”. Incredibly, Gaffney himself suggested that the Obama administration had inserted an Islamic crescent moon into the logo of the Missile Defense Agency.
Gaffney hasn’t, as yet, been rewarded with a post in the administration. But Flynn’s and Bannon’s closeness to the president means their clash-of-civilisations rhetoric and blurring of the line between Islam and jihadism carry real authority. The question is: what effect will this actually have on terrorism, in the US and around the world?
Katerina Dalacoura, associate professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, thinks Flynn’s framing of the problem is wrong, for a start. “We have a situation very different from the cold war one,” she says. “Within the Soviet Union and eastern Europe generally, you had the population at large being sympathetic to the United States. The US was able to play a role of upholder of certain values because politically it had been unable to interfere. In the case of the Middle East, the US has no such standing. In fact, it’s the opposite – I think that through decades of intervention, [it] has been turned into an illegitimate actor.”
“It may be able to play that role in 10 or 20 years, if it continues to pull out of the Middle East. But not at this moment.”
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, a former chair of the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee, is similarly sceptical. “I don’t think Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to western democracy. Western democracy has got other kinds of problems, in populism, in reaction against globalisation, in the fragmentation of political cultures, in the rise of the local over the collective. I would put terrorism way down the list of real existential concerns.” He describes it, instead, as a “lethal nuisance”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators at anti-Donald Trump travel ban protests outside Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Photograph: Christopher Aluka Berry/Reuters
In terms of the fight against Isis, he expects American action around Mosul to continue, with the focus moving, in due course, to Raqqa. Eliminating these strongholds is unlikely to be the end of the story, however. “You’ve got to look at what other kinds of terrorist action are going to be stimulated by the loss of territory where Isis had wanted to form a caliphate … they will have to start showing that terrorism has teeth in other ways, including presumably, in incidents in western democracies.”
This is not an argument for allowing Isis to remain in Syria and Iraq, he says. Instead, “if there is to be a global anti-terrorist coalition that is effective, it’s got to deal with some of the causes of it, rather than the symptoms. It’s got to deal with governance in the Middle East, it’s got to deal with ungoverned space in other territories … I don’t see any signs from Trump yet that he has formed a proactive, comprehensive policy that deals with the whole phenomenon of 21st-century terrorism.”
Despite this, Trump’s strong-man stance has fans – and not just among the 65% of his voters who viewed terrorism as a “major problem”. James Carafano, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who served on the Trump transition committee, sounds as if he is looking forward to the change in tone. “The previous administration, because they didn’t want anything to be perceived as anti-Muslim or focused on a specific religion, kind of tried to vanilla-ize or neuter the programmes by using terms such as ‘countering violent extremism’, ‘counter radicalisation’, or whatever else. And I think that will go away. Very clearly the administration will say look, we’re focusing on stopping … Islamist-related transnational terrorism.” One unambiguous token of this came on Saturday, when a US raid in the Yakla district of Yemen was said by the Pentagon to have killed 14 members of al-Qaida.
Will a military solution result in blowback? Carofano calls this argument “stupid”. “At the peak of hard power [from] the US, which is about 2007-2008, when they crushed the uprising in Iraq, the terrorism numbers actually plummeted. And when Obama went to this kind of ‘let’s move away from hard power into the more soft power and more stealthy approach’, the numbers skyrocketed.” Carofano is right that total deaths from terrorism dipped after 2007, but they rose above | 3,540,629 |
those levels only after the beginning of the Syrian civil war, in 2011.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump signs an executive order to impose tighter vetting of travellers entering the US, targeting Muslim-majority countries and shutting down refugee entry. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters
Was Trump’s promise to eradicate “radical Islamic terrorism … from the face of the earth” realistic? “Here’s why this is a stupid question: people all the time say we want to eliminate poverty, and nobody says, ‘Well that’s stupid, you can’t eliminate all poverty’ … nobody has a problem with that.”
There is a home front to this ramped-up “war on terror”, and many Muslim Americans are profoundly anxious about the possible impact on their lives. Moustafa Bayoumi, professor at Brooklyn College and author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?, says: “It’s clear that Trump uses Islam as a kind of rhetorical prop to feed his populism. But I think that he has also developed a cabinet that has some internal contradictions. There is Flynn, for sure, and he’s not inconsequential, but [John] Kelly, on the homeland security front, seems more reasonable.” Does he think Trump has a fear of Muslims? “That’s a good question, and I think it asks for coherence from an incoherent mind.”
The 15 years since 9/11 have been difficult for the Muslim community – he cites, among other things, warrantless surveillance and FBI informants. “But, on the other hand, the state has functioned on many levels to preserve the sphere of civil society for Muslim Americans. Things such as the justice department filing suit for problems with mosque construction.” Under Obama, the federal government sued several cities for religious discrimination after they had refused permits for new mosques. “I’m not sure that we’re going to see that from a Jeff Sessions justice department. I’m not sure we’re going to have the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission take on Muslim discrimination cases with the same kind of interest.”
It’s clear that Trump uses Islam as a kind of rhetorical prop to feed his populism
“Even George W Bush,” Bayoumi says, “was trying to preserve a certain sense that the government will be in charge of patrolling Muslims, not vigilantes. Whereas, under Trump, I could see how that they could just both become the same thing. We’ll lose that sense of guarantee of equal protection under the law.”
That raises the prospect of a vicious circle. Enhanced vetting for Muslims will just make everyone else more suspicious. “I know when I fly, on those few occasions when I’ve actually been taken away from the line for a special screening then taken back to the line, it hardly makes anybody, myself included, feel more comfortable,” he laughs. “The extra scrutiny is just going to make everybody more Islamophobic, and this is just going to make Muslims feel more alienated.”
Scott Atran, an anthropologist with unrivalled field experience of radicalisation – he’s just come back from interviewing members of Islamic State near Mosul – deplores the visa ban and many of the other signals coming from the Trump team. “That stigmatises all citizens of those countries, many of whom sacrificed their lives for what they thought was advancing the values and goals of both countries. Just take Iraq – the US invaded Iraq, the country fell apart, tens of thousands of people tried to help the United States in their efforts there, and now you’re basically saying they’re not allowed in either? You can’t just turn your back on people whose lives you put in harm’s way.”
There are many reasonable Americans who would counter that, whatever the antecedents, Iraq is now a safe haven for many violent jihadists. Doesn’t it make sense to reduce the likelihood of one of them getting through to zero? “There have not been problems with people coming from Libya, Syria, or Iraq, because they are very carefully vetted. So I think this just plays to a general fear.”
The hard edges of Trumpian counter-terrorism represent an attempt to placate the people who supported him, says Atran, and “to give a general sense that he’s trying to protect the American homeland. I don’t think it will be very effective or meaningful, except that it works psychologically on voters.” Moreover, the idea that everyday Islam shades into violent jihadism is “a disastrous line to take. It’s one that plays directly to the Islamic State’s desire to eliminate the grey zone between believers and non-believers, by | 3,540,630 |
Engines don't make horsepower; they convert fuel into torque. Torque is the twisting force imparted to the crank flange and then transmitted to the transmission and the rest of the drivetrain. To some degree torque is the grunt that gets things moving, and horsepower is the force that keeps things moving. An engine is most efficient at its torque peak, wherever that happens to occur. Below the torque peak, engines generally have more than enough time to fill the cylinders; above the torque peak, they don't have enough time to completely fill the cylinders. This is generally beneficial in that it lets engines produce most of the desirable grunt work (torque) at lower engine speeds, which means reduced wear-and-tear and better fuel economy. The ability to extend an engine's speed-range allows it to stretch that torque curve out farther, provided that the high-speed efficiency is there to make horsepower.
Power is torque multiplied by engine speed to produce a measurement of the engine's ability to do work over a given period of time. The story of its origin is well known, but worth repeating, briefly. In the 18th century, steam engine inventor James Watt sought a way to equate the work his steam engine could perform to the number of horses required to perform the same task. Watt performed simple tests with a horse as it operated a gear-driven mine pump by pulling a lever connected to the pump. He determined that the horse was capable of traveling 181 feet per minute with 180 pounds of pulling force. This multiplied out to 32,580 lbs-ft per minute, which Watt rounded off to 33,000 lbs-ft per minute. Divided by 60 seconds, this yields 550 lbs-ft per second, which became the standard for 1 horsepower. Thus, horsepower is a measure of force in pounds against a distance in feet for a time period of one minute. By substituting an arbitrary lever length for the crankshaft stroke, you can calculate the distance traveled around the crank axis in one minute multiplied by engine speed (rpm) and known torque to arrive at the formula for horsepower:
Because torque and rpm are divided by 5252, torque and horsepower are always equal at 5252 rpm. If you solve the equation at 5252 rpm, the rpm value cancels out, leaving horsepower equal to torque. If you plot torque and horsepower curves on a graph, the lines will always cross at 5250 rpm (rounded off). If they don't, the curve is undoubtedly bogus.
Torque is the static measurement of how much work an engine does, while power is a measure of how fast the work is being done. Since horsepower is calculated from torque, what we are all seeking is the greatest-possible torque value over the broadest-possible rpm range. Horsepower will follow suit, and it will fall in the engine speed range dictated by the many factors that affect the torque curve.
Increased displacement is the easiest way to achieve increased torque. Very large cylinders and a long stroke offer the greatest cylinder volume and overall piston area for the fuel charge to push against the crankshaft or lever, if you will. Stationary industrial engines that produce tremendous amounts of torque are typically quite large. The mass and bulk of one of these engines makes extremely large displacement engines impractical for use in cars.
Hence, we are limited to displacement values that are easily packaged within the confines of your typical automobile engine compartment. The practical limit is between 400-500 cubic inches for most large automobile engines. Big-block engines in this range deliver tremendous torque, and they are easier on parts for the same amount of power output. Car crafters have stretched displacement out as far as 800 cubic inches with highly modified cylinder blocks and crankshaft strokes, but these engines are not practical or economical for general high-performance applications.
This leaves us searching for ways to increase torque in smaller engines by increasing efficiency through the manipulation of mechanical components, gas dynamics and thermodynamics (to increase and harness cylinder pressure). There are many ways to do this, but most involve some sort of tradeoff somewhere in the power curve. To a great degree, we are forced to build engines for greater efficiency within a chosen engine speed range. Some combinations will function very well at low speeds, others will be strong in the mid-range, and still others will only run hard at a high rpm. The key is selecting the combination of components that will stretch and fatten the torque curve (improve efficiency) as much as possible in the driving range we prefer. Our saving grace is the relatively forgiving nature of internal combustion engines wherein torque dissipates gradually as engine speed increases. As long as the induction system can carry the airflow demand created by the cylinders at high engine speeds, the torque curve will remain broad. This allows engine speed and horsepower to carry the engine farther in the rpm range before the net effect of induction restrictions at high engine speeds chokes off efficiency. The following are some basic methods for increasing torque and, thus, horsepower across the typical range | 3,540,631 |
of modern-performance engine speeds.
Mechanical Efficiency
Friction robs a great deal of power from an engine. The greatest friction losses are caused by the pistons and piston rings. We overcome this with meticulous cylinder wall and piston preparation. Cylinder blocks that are bored and honed with a torque plate in place always contribute to a reduction in friction. This practice reduces cylinder-wall distortion caused by head-bolt clamping forces. Thus, the piston travels in the same properly sized bore throughout its stroke, and the piston rings are not subjected to changes in tension due to wall distortion. The piston manufacturer's recommended skirt clearances should be followed in most cases, because they have spent countless hours developing a skirt that stabilizes the piston and the ring pack in the bore with minimal friction.
A smooth bore generally improves ring seal and reduces friction. The best honing finish depends on the type of rings and the final application. The piston-ring manufacturer's recommendations are your best bet. Rings should be hand-fit with ring gaps set to the minimum recommended clearance. Piston rings should also be very carefully checked in each individual piston to ensure the minimum recommended side clearance. If a ring is sticking due to too little side clearance, friction will soar. If a ring is too loose, it may flutter and drag intermittently while bleeding off precious cylinder pressure.
One way to improve mechanical efficiency that most people ignore is through the use of special antifriction coatings for pistons, rings and bearings. These coatings are available in do-it-yourself kits from mail-order houses such as Summit Racing. When properly applied, the coating can get you another 10 horsepower or so. The ideal application would use coated components with optimized clearances and a good synthetic oil for maximum friction reduction. Altogether, there may be as much as 20 horsepower available with the right combination of friction-reducing ingredients.
Another component of friction reduction is the preparation of the cylinder-block bearing saddles and the crankshaft. Cylinder blocks should be align-honed to minimize frictional losses. This gives the crankshaft a straight set of bearings on which to run. Likewise, the crankshaft must be straightened to eliminate runout, and the entire reciprocating assembly must be properly balanced to minimize drag created by uneven forces.
More torque may be gained if you use a well-designed oil pan with an effective oil scraper and aerodynamic shaping of the crank-throw leading edges. Small-block Chevy builders should avoid the temptation to use a big-block-style oil pump. Use a properly clearanced small-block pump, and set it to deliver only the pressure necessary to provide optimum lubrication. Most small blocks never need more than about 60 psi, even at a high rpm. Excessive oil pressure or a bigger pump with taller gears robs power throughout the entire rpm range. Also consider the pumping losses caused by the induction and exhaust system. This should lead you to careful consideration of each system, because the engine's ability to work efficiently is largely controlled by these systems. See the accompanying sections for further discussion of these subjects.
Thermodynamic Efficiency
This is really combustion efficiency, and it all has to do with getting the correct air-fuel mixture in a well-sealed, active combustion chamber with a properly timed high-energy spark. Spark timing and chamber shape influence this tremendously, but most engines make optimum power at wide-open throttle with a 13.1:1 air-fuel ratio. You want your carburetor or fuel injection system to optimize this air-fuel ratio as fast as possible when you go WOT, and you want them to maintain that fuel curve throughout the rpm range. This can be no small trick with a carburetor and is certainly easier with electronic fuel injection, in which oxygen-sensor monitoring of the exhaust gas allows the computer to continuously adjust the fuel ratio.
Engines with a large quench area and a smaller combustion chamber are generally more combustion-efficient. The quench area is the flat, top portion of the piston adjacent to the valve reliefs. The flat portion of the piston deck corresponds to the flat portion of the cylinder-head chamber roof. When the piston approaches the cylinder head at high speed, this area squashes the charge toward the ignition source or spark plug to promote turbulence and a faster burn. Some studies suggest that you can have too much quench, but most engine builders feel that optimizing combustion-chamber quench is a proven path to power. On many steel-rod engines, you can juggle the head-gasket thickness and the piston deck height to maximize quench. Steel rods allow the quench clearance to be set as tight as 0.030 inch, or slightly less in some cases. This promotes maximum charge activity to increase combustion efficiency.
If you have the luxury of custom pistons, your piston manufacturer can also move the ring package higher on the piston | 3,540,632 |
to provide greater piston stability. A higher ring package will also reduce the very small area between the piston and the cylinder wall above the top ring. Because all pistons experience some small degree of rocking as they reverse directions, the piston is generally machined smaller or tapered above the top ring land to keep it from hitting the cylinder wall during this rocking. The space created here is very tight and can collect unburned or partially burned gases; these intermittently mix with the fresh, incoming charge and contaminate the mixture or alter the air/fuel ratio ever so slightly. Paying close attention to these kinds of details can add up to a significant torque bonus. When you add up all the small amounts of torque that you gain from these details, you'll be surprised at how much total power you have really gained.
Compression Ratio
Much like increased engine displacement, higher compression ratios are a sure path to increased torque. The overriding factor is, of course, fuel quality and detonation. There are numerous factors to consider here. Finer atomization of the fuel and more precise control of air/fuel ratios via electronic fuel injection has allowed O.E.M. manufacturers to increase compression ratios above 10:1 in some late-model, high-performance cars. The very latest LT4 Corvette engines are actually sneaking up on 11:1 compression ratios again because of the inherent efficiency of electronic controls and the combustion-efficiency gains made in the cylinder heads and induction system. Carburetors are less precise, but there are other ways to increase torque with higher compression in carbureted engines running 92-octane gasoline. Many street engine combinations running a big cam for top-end power experience a significant loss of low-end torque. This occurs because the intake valves close much later when the piston is farther up the bore. Thus, the dynamic compression ratio is less than the theoretical compression ratio that assumes full-stroke piston travel. If you are going to run a big cam, one of the bonuses is that you can increase the compression ratio slightly without incurring a detonation penalty. The increased compression will boost the low-end torque and extend the top-end power range. Experienced engine builders have found that 9:1 compression engines require at least a 270-degree (advertised duration) cam. On the other hand, 10:1 engines are happy with a 280-degree cam, and a 290-degree cam will allow you to run nearly 11:1 compression. Depending on other engine variables, such as combustion-chamber shape, bore diameter and ignition timing, some engines will detonate under these conditions. In these cases you need to go to a smaller cam or run slightly less total timing. In any event, the idea is to use as much compression as possible relative to the cam profile in order to gain low-end torque without detonating.
Camshaft Timing
When you consider valve-timing events, you also have to consider all the other elements acting on the fuel charge and combustion gases in the cylinders. An earlier-closing intake valve starts building cylinder pressure sooner. This increases low-speed torque due to greater cylinder pressures, but it means that the engine is having to work harder to compress the charge. As previously explained, a later-closing intake can enhance top-end torque at the expense of low-end torque, but you can get most of the torque back on the low end with an increased compression ratio. What you look for is a cam profile that promotes increased cylinder filling with earlier intake opening so that the valve is farther off the seat during the early portion of the intake stroke. Then you want to delay the exhaust-valve opening as much as possible to take advantage of all the energy you can from the combustion process before you blow down the cylinder. A quick-opening exhaust valve is helpful here, but, again, there are trade-offs.
This combination builds good torque but tends to increase valve overlap at TDC. This is where the cam lobe separation angle takes control. The lobe separation angle is the angle between the peak of the intake lobe and the peak of the exhaust lobe expressed in cam degrees. Tighter lobe separation angles (less than 110 degrees) make more torque and horsepower, but, with more overlap, the engine experiences poor idle quality and high fuel consumption. Opening up the lobe separation angles (more than 110 degrees) broadens the power band while improving idle and part throttle characteristics. With these wider lobe separation angles, peak torque and power are generally reduced, but the engine becomes very smooth and drivable.
Most street and high-performance engines will perform best when overlap is between 35 and 70 degrees (measured from intake-valve opening to exhaust-valve closing) with the duration as short as possible within the overlap guidelines. If you choose 50 degrees as a middle-of-the-road overlap figure for a pretty hot street machine, the shortest possible duration with this overlap will produce the most torque. You could make more torque with a | 3,540,633 |
bigger cam--but only at the expense of driveability and economy.
Cylinder Head Selection
Cylinder heads are where the power is, but there are limitations. You are generally limited to what's available, and, for most people, porting is a luxury. Increased airflow always means more top end power. For the most part, it is better to run a larger valve, if possible, and a shorter camshaft. This allows the larger valve opening to do the work of filling the cylinder while the cam remains relatively mild. Torque will be increased. Bigger valve heads may give you more overall torque than a simple cam swap. If your heads have stock-sized valves and you put in a larger cam, you will have to spin the engine faster to make the same torque and power.
That's the simplified version, but there are other considerations. The length, area and volume of the intake system all affect the engine's output. Most hot street engines will benefit from bowl porting and a good valve job, but you should avoid significantly enlarging the ports. The minute you start enlarging the port, you are bleeding off potential torque. Unless your engine will spend a lot of time at elevated engine speeds, don't start hogging out those ports.
If you have the ability to modify heads, you can extract more torque and horsepower by porting for efficiency, but the process is tedious at best. Street enthusiasts aren't generally in a position to flow heads and check port dimensions. If you are, the intake port area should be about 80 percent of the valve area, and the port should enlarge at a 2- to 4-degree taper out to the plenum. This is pretty standard on most available heads.
Exhaust ports should not be enlarged significantly unless you're running nitrous oxide, which produces a greater exhaust requirement. Most good aftermarket headers have been sized and built to create a negative pressure at the exhaust valve during overlap. This ensures good cylinder scavenging and reduces the potential for exhaust reversion: Exhaust gas speed remains high, and the pulse waves are tuned to aid the exiting exhaust charge.
Exhaust Systems
Much of your cylinder head work is diminished if you are running stock exhaust manifolds and mufflers. Exhaust headers are louder and require more attention than cast iron manifolds, but they offer substantial power advantages. While most aftermarket performance headers are of the standard four-into-one collector design, many street applications could make better use of the old four-into-two-into-one Tri-Y design, which broadens the torque curve and is still capable of making power up to about 6000 rpm. These headers are more expensive and time consuming to produce; hence, they are only available from a few manufacturers.
One of the biggest mistakes made in exhaust-header application is the selection of primary tubes that are too large. Big primary tubes are only necessary to carry the gas volume generated at high engine speeds. Most headers with 1-1/2-inch primary tubes will carry an engine well into the 300hp range, while 1-5/8-inch headers can support up to 400 horsepower, and a little beyond in some cases. This depends a great deal on displacement and engine speed. We have seen 1-3/4 headers support up to 550 horsepower without affecting power on a single four-barrel 350 Chevy running at 7500 rpm. Meanwhile, a 480hp, twin carburetor 302 Ford running at 8000 rpm gained 13 horsepower by switching to 1-7/8-inch primaries. It is usually better to err on the small side for a street engine so that torque remains strong. Pipes that are too large generally hurt the bottom end more than small pipes hurt the top end.
Exhaust-system backpressure--as a result of restrictive mufflers, catalytic converters and multiple sharp bends in the exhaust system--can be severely detrimental to good torque and power. Exhaust-pumping losses caused by restrictive exhaust backpressure can be substantial in some applications, and the problem increases dramatically with engine speed. Performance camshafts are also rendered less effective because backpressure typically negates any improved cylinder scavenging during the overlap period. The Catch 22 with exhaust systems is your own personal comfort with the sound level of the mufflers. You can run mufflers with virtually no restriction, but the drone may drive you crazy the first time you take a 100-mile trip. The best approach for most street engines is to complement all the other torque-building efforts you have applied by using a Tri-Y header with at least 2.5-inch diameter exhaust pipes and the least restrictive muffler you can stand relative to sound levels. A crossover tube to balance the pulses from each cylinder bank can help smooth the sound a bit, and it may add a very slight amount of torque depending on the rest of the application. It is usually worthwhile.
Ignition Timing
Incorrect ignition timing has | 3,540,634 |
Satya Nadella email to employees on aligning engineering to strategy
From: Satya Nadella
To: All Employees
Date: June 17, 2015
Subject: Aligning Our Strategy & Structure
Team,
As we approach a new fiscal year, I’d like to share with you how we are aligning our structure to our strategy and the changes to our Senior Leadership Team.
Over the past year, I have said that Microsoft aspires to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To do this, building the best-in-class productivity services and platforms for the mobile-first, cloud-first world is at the heart of our strategy, with three interconnected and bold ambitions:
Reinvent productivity and business processes
Build the intelligent cloud platform
Create more personal computing
To better align our capabilities and, ultimately, deliver better products and services our customers love at a more rapid pace, I have decided to organize our engineering effort into three groups that work together to deliver on our strategy and ambitions. The changes take effect today.
Terry Myerson will lead a new team, Windows and Devices Group (WDG), enabling our vision of a more personal computing experience powered by the Windows ecosystem. We will combine the engineering efforts of our current Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group (MDG) led by Stephen Elop. This new team brings together all the engineering capability required to drive breakthrough innovations that will propel the Windows ecosystem forward. WDG will drive Windows as a service across devices of all types and build all of our Microsoft devices including Surface, HoloLens, Lumia, Surface Hub, Band and Xbox. This enables us to create new categories while generating enthusiasm and demand for Windows broadly.
Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E) team focused on building the intelligent cloud platform that powers any application on any device. The C+E team will also focus on building high-value infrastructure and business services that are unique to enterprise customers, such as data and analytics products, security and management offerings, and business processes. Today, we are also moving the development teams who build our Dynamics products to C+E, which will enable us to accelerate our ERP and CRM work even further and mainstream them as part of our core engineering and innovation efforts. C+E will work closely with ASG to ensure the end-to-end experience is cohesive across communications, collaboration and business processes.
Qi Lu will continue to lead the Applications and Services Group (ASG) that is focused on reinventing productivity. This group is leading the charge in building productivity services for digital work that span all devices and appeal to the people who use technology at work and in their personal lives. ASG has already made advancements in these areas, and the only change as part of today’s announcement is that the engineering efforts to build solutions for Education will move to ASG.
Changes of this nature require us to look at our leadership structure overall, and as a result a few Senior Leadership Team members will leave Microsoft at the conclusion of a transition period.
When Stephen Elop returned to Microsoft, he oriented MDG to create the best Microsoft experience through its devices, inclusive of hardware, software and services. He has been a strong advocate of the need to drive focus and accountability around the delivery of these experiences and has helped drive tighter alignment toward the ambition of more personal computing. With the structural change described above, Stephen and I have agreed that now is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft. I regret the loss of leadership that this represents, and look forward to seeing where his next destination will be.
Kirill Tatarinov is going to explore what’s next for him. Under Kirill’s leadership, the Dynamics business has grown to a nearly $2 billion business with an ambitious wave of products on the horizon. Perhaps most important though, Kirill and team have shown us that participating in a meaningful way in the CRM and ERP market opens up new opportunities we can uniquely take advantage of by bringing Dynamics into Microsoft’s mainstream engineering, sales and marketing efforts. I am very thankful for Kirill’s unswerving leadership in bringing Dynamics to this point and building a strong leadership team to carry it forward.
After more than 25 years at Microsoft, Eric Rudder has decided to try something new. Eric has played a number of key roles at Microsoft including founding and growing the Server and Tools business in its early days, leading Microsoft Research, and most recently driving our advanced technology and education efforts. I will deeply miss Eric’s passion, technical and business acumen, and keen intellect, and I appreciate all he’s done for Microsoft.
Lastly, a number of months ago, Mark Penn shared with me that he is planning to leave Microsoft in September to form a private equity fund, among other things. Over the years | 3,540,635 |
DESCRIPTION of SPECIES DESCRIPTION of SPECIES Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Subphylum: Vertebrata Class: Osteichthyses (the bony fishes) Order: Tetraodoniformes(trigger fish, boxfish, porcupine fish, puffers) Family: Molidae Genus, Species: Mola mola, Mola tecta, Mola alexandrini, Mola ramsayi, Masturus lanceolatus, Ranzania laevis. put liPresently, six species are recognized within the family Molidae including: the common mola, Mola mola (Linnaeus 1758), Mola ramsayi (Giglioli 1883), Mola alexandrini (Ranzani 1839), Mola tecta (Nyegaard et al. 2017), the sharp-tailed mola, Masturus lanceolatus (Lienard 1840) and the slender mola, Ranzania laevis (Pennant 1776). All Mola ramsayi populations may turn out to be Mola alexandrini however more data are needed to confirm this statement. New species of Ranzania have yet to be formally described. Throughout the world, a number of intriguing common names exist for ocean sunfishes including: Poisson lune (France) (meaning "moon fish")
Schwimmender kopf (German) (meaning "swimming head")
Putol (Philippines) (Bisaya dialect for "cut short")
Manbo マンボウ (Japanese)
Toppled car fish (Taiwanese)
Bezador (Spanish)
Makua (Hawaiian) More names...
Species & Distribution
Early Life
Diet, Size, Growth
Parasites & Predators Mola mola (Common mola) The most common and widespread of ocean sunfish in the northern hemisphere is Mola mola. These fish, like all ocean sunfishes, appear as if their bodies have been somehow truncated leaving them little more than a large head punctuated with set of long dorsal and anal fins sweeping it along like a pair of vertical parentheses. The body is less than twice as long as it is deep. Mola mola have a rounded tail when they are juveniles which can become scalloped as they age and become larger. Their scales are multi-cusped and jagged making their skin very gritty like rough sandpaper. They are covered with copious amounts of mucus and typically silvery in color with a slight opalescent sheen although their skin can exhibit strikingly changeable, light and dark spotty patterns. Their clavus is supported by 8-9 ossicles and these ossicles are narrower than the space between them. Mola alexandrini (bump-head mola) Mola alexandrini is similar to Mola mola particularly in its juvenile stages but diverges as it matures by retaining a rounded clavus. (M. mola develops a wavy clavus in its largest size.) Their rounded clavus (pseudo-tail section) is supported by 14-24 (average 17) fin rays and 8-15 (average 12) ossicles, an enlarged bulbous head, chin bump and rectangular scales. Mola ramsayi (Short ocean sunfish) Etsuro et al 2017 suggests that Mola ramsayi be replaced by Mola alexandrini (see characteristics above). Mola ramsayi, commonly known as the short or southern ocean sunfish, has been recorded in numerous locations in the northern hemisphere. Investigations continue to see if Mola ramsayi should be fully retired as there remains some inconsistencies in some descriptions as well as numerous individuals that have a bump head and a wavy clavus—a mix of characters from the Mola mola and Mola alexandrini/Mola ramsayi. Mola tecta (hoodwinker sunfish) Mola tecta reside in the southern hemisphere, with records from South America, Australasian waters and New Zealand. They have rounded scales and a distinct bad in the center of their clavus.
photo: Cindy Manning
Masturus lanceolatus (Sharp-tailed mola) Masturus can also reach great sizes. As their common name implies, sharp-tailed mola have a bit more to their tail than Mola mola. Similarly colored to Mola mola, they have smoother skin and produce less mucus. Interestingly, sharp-tailed molas are not consummate sunbathers and carry a smaller parasite load than Mola mola and also have a more tropical distribution.
photo: Wolfgang Sterrer Ranzania la | 3,540,636 |
evis (Slender mola, dwarf mola) Unlike other molas, the slender mola only reaches approx. 100 cm in total length. They are the most colorful and elusive of the ocean sunfishes. They have a smooth, thinner skin than any of the other molas and a vertically oriented mouth.
The Polynesians called these sunfish "King of the Mackerels". It was seen as bad luck to catch and kill Ranzania for such an act would render the mackerel incapable of finding their way to the islands. While this is currently the only accepted species in the cosmopolitan genus Ranzania it is very likely that there are more species waiting to be formally described. A NOTE ABOUT NAMES The common name "sunfish" is used to describe the marine family, Molidae, as well as the freshwater family, Centrarchidae. The common names "ocean sunfish" and "mola" refer only to the family Molidae and can be applied all three Molidae species. The word mola comes from Latin and means millstone–in reference to these fishes’ roundish shape. The common name "ocean sunfish" comes from their habit of lying atop the surface of the ocean appearing to sunbathe. DISTRIBUTION, MOVEMENTS and RANGES All species of sunfish are found in all tropical and temperate ocean basins. While there is considerable overlap, there do appear to be specific preferences depending on species. With insight gleaned from satellite tagging studies, ultrasonic tagging and our internet sighting form, we are starting to piece together the seasonal distribution of ocean sunfish populations throughout the world ocean. For example Mola mola in the Western Pacific off Japan, were recorded moving from Kamogawa Japan northwards to the Kuril Islands off Russia (Dewar et al. 2010) during the summer months. In Indonesia sunfish tagged in Bali were found to move eastward along frontal margins during the wet season (Thys et al. 2015). In the Eastern Pacific, individuals tagged in Central and Southern California migrate as far south as Baja California during the fall and winter months (Thys et al. 2016). In the Western Atlantic, individuals tagged off Nantucket and Florida in the summer months moved into the Gulf of Mexico (Potter et al. 2011; Potter & Howell 2010) while in the Eastern Atlantic, sunfish tagged off the UK moved south to Spain to the Gulf of Cadiz (Souza et al 2017; others). Sunfish off South Africa move offshore but don't exhibit substantial latitudinal migrations (Hays et al. 2009). The northernmost record is from 70∘ 44′ N off northern Norway dating back to December 1881 (see Frafjord et al 2017 for more details) Molas produce an impressive number of eggs. A 1.4 m (4.5 ft) female was estimated to be carrying 300 million eggs in her single unpaired ovary. ( Note while male molas have paired testes, females have unpaired gonads.) 300 million is greater than most other fishes and to date remains the largest number of eggs ever recorded in a single vertebrate at any one time (Carwardine, 1995). Needless to say, the eggs are tiny (1.3mm in diameter) and would fit into the size of this "o". After hatching, the larvae expose their affinity to their spiky puffer-fish relatives and look more like swimming pincushions than wee molas. As they grow and mature however, their spines disappear, as do their tails. For more information on larval development of molas see the Australian Museum’s Fish Site.
Mola mola larvae
Ranzania laevis larvae
Masturus lanceolatus larvae
Preying upon By-the-Wind-Sailor (Velella velella) Preying upon By-the-Wind-Sailor ( DIET Mola mola eat a variety of foods especially when they are younger. Squid, sponges, serpent star bits, eel grass, crustaceans, small fishes and deepwater eel larvae have also been found in M. mola guts indicating that they forage at the surface, among floating weeds, on the seafloor as well as into deep water (Norman and Fraser, 1949). As they mature their diet appears to shift to include more gelatinous zooplankton—jellies including Portuguese man-o-war, Vellella, ctenophores and salps. Stable isotope work and DNA barcoding (Sousa et al 2016) has found that there is an ontogenetic shift in the composition of the Mola mola diet with smaller individuals ≤0.60 m eating more benthic prey items including crustaceans as well as teleosts while larger ones focus more on | 3,540,637 |
gelatinous pelagic zooplankton. The diet preferences of Masturus lanceolatus are presumed similar to that of Mola mola. Bottom dwelling sponges and annelids have also been found in the stomachs of young Masturus (Yabe, 1953) and more small fish and various invertebrates, indicative of both benthic and pelagic foraging (Bakenhaster and Knight-Gray 2016). Ranzania eat an assortment of crustacean, fish and molluscs including myctophid larvae, hyperiid amphipods, crab megalops, crab zoea and pteropods. Most feeding appears to take place within 150m (500 ft) of the surface (Fitch, 1969). Staff from the at Monterey Bay Aquarium report having caught Ranzania while trawling for skipjack tuna so we know these little fellows can zip along. They also have been recorded to have squid in their guts. (Nyegaard et al 2017)
SIZE, GROWTH and LONGEVITY The average size of an adult Mola mola is 1.8 m (6ft) from snout tip to the end of the clavus (pseudo-tail) and 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) between the tips of the dorsal and anal fins. The average weight is up to 1 metric ton (2200 lbs). The heaviest mola on record came from Japan, Mola alexandrini, was 2.7 meters (8.9 feet) long and weighed 2.3 metric tons (5,071 pounds). Before this discovery the largest Mola ever recorded weighed 2235 kg (4,927 lbs) and measured 3.1 m (10 ft) from snout tip to "tail" fin, 4.26 m (14 ft) from dorsal fin to anal fin tip. That animal was struck by a boat off Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in September, 1908 (Carwardine, 1995). It is likely there are larger molas but there was not a scale available to take a formal measurement.
No data exist on how fast mola grow in the wild but one Mola mola individual in captivity at the Monterey Bay Aquarium gained 364 kg (800 lbs) in 14 months. Fattened up on a diet of squid, fish and prawns, this fish had to be airlifted out by helicopter and released into the bay after outgrowing its million gallon tank. (Powell. D. 2003 A Fascination for Fish, UC Press/Monterey Bay Aquarium Series in Marine Conservation.) The longevity of molas in the wild is also a mystery although Kamogawa SeaWorld in Japan housed the same individual for more than10 years in captivity. (Nakasubo et al. 2007, Growth of captive ocean sunfish, Mola mola Suisan Zoshoku 55: 403-407.) A growth curve derived from repeated measurements of captive individuals estimated animals with a total length of 3m would be approx. 20 years old (Nakatsubo, T. 2008 A study on the reproductive biology of ocean sunfish Mola mola. Dissertation. International Marine Biological Institute. Kamagawa Sea World, Japan. Liu et al 2009 examined vertebral growth rings in Masturus from Taiwan and estimated lifespan of individuals greater than 2 to 23 years for females and 1-16 years for males. Accurately estimating and measuring the age of wild mola remains a work in progress. COLORATION Mola come in a variety of gray and white patterns with some sporting your basic gray motif while others go for the more polka-dotted appaloosa style. Many also have a slight iridescent sheen. Certain geographic areas seem to have discrete color patterns—for example the mola in Bali appear darker than those off Southern California. Molas may have specific traceable patterns individual identification research is taking place in Bali and Galapagos. Mola are capable of color changes particularly when stressed or under attack from a sea lion or other predator and can turn from light to dark within a matter of moments.
Lepeoptheirus sp. or Caligus sp.
Click for detail. Can you count them all? Photo courtesty Chris Potgieter
Sept 30,2007 at Crystal Bay, Lebongang, Bali Dive depth was 45m at the cleaning station.
Parasitic copepod (Pennella filosa)
Didymozoid trematode
Removed from the inside of a Masturus lanceolatus in Hua Lien Taiwan--supposedly 1 in 100 Masturus there have these tumors. PARASITES Since parasites often sport multiple hosts, they can offer valuable insight into ocean sunfish interspecies associations. For instance, one sunfish parasite is the larval stage of a shark tap | 3,540,638 |
It’s been six months since Amazon broke up with New York on Valentine’s Day, and the city is still feeling the pain. Many worked hard to convince the tech giant to base its second HQ in Long Island City, a plan that would have regenerated a brownfield in the neighborhood, created at least 25,000 jobs and finally signaled that Silicon Alley is a true rival to the tech hubs on the West Coast.
But the time for mourning is over.
The fact is, New York doesn’t need to depend on luring in big corporations to give our tech biz a boost. We should bet on ourselves.
New York dangled $3 billion in various tax rebates and incentives to lure Amazon to our city. This was a worthwhile bargain, but it didn’t end up working. So now, wouldn’t we be better off nurturing our homegrown tech companies by training locals and creating an environment that’s critical to local business?
To do this, we don’t need to roll out a massive tax-rebate program. We simply need to make the city easier for startups.
We already have many advantages. Tech companies need to attract outside talent — people who love living in vibrant, diverse and interesting cities. We have that. Tech companies must be near major airports and rail lines, geographically close to their customers, clients and investors. We have that. And they need access to capital. Goodness knows, we have that.
What New York doesn’t have is a culture that plucks local talent and pushes it into tech. It lacks an environment that makes opening a business and meeting local standards straightforward and reasonable, and not ruinously expensive. It fails to provide enough affordable housing or uniformly good public schools where members of the startup economy can live and raise their families.
There are many ways to fix this. The success of Cornell Tech is a start.
In just a few short years, the joint venture between Cornell and Technion in Israel on Roosevelt Island has created a new model for STEM education.
Hundreds of new tech graduates have been minted. Meanwhile, the school’s world-class faculty and students are busy promoting digital literacy in our city’s public schools, encouraging kids to begin startups of their own. And for women studying STEM at CUNY, Cornell Tech offers two- and three-week “winternships” at leading local employers. All this from an initial city investment of $100 million (about the cost of a 15-story apartment building) and free land on Roosevelt Island.
Imagine a half-dozen more such programs, run by highly qualified local universities and schools and seeded with public funds, focused on training the future tech workers of New York. Locals could gain a range of qualifications, from mid-career Ph.D. and master’s degrees to high-school STEM courses like those at Stuyvesant High School to six-week skills-based programs similar to ones found at the global tech school General Assembly.
If the leaders of our city’s five boroughs pulled together with the same energy they put into the Amazon deal, we wouldn’t have to give up so much future tax revenue (or government money). New York can offer public-owned buildings for work spaces and accelerate regulatory approvals and accreditation to get startups moving fast. By partnering with big real-estate companies and universities, the city could deliver more lower-cost housing for workers. And by collaborating with private companies offering an immediately relevant curriculum, the city can enhance our public-education system. The program CS4ALL, an $80 million public-private partnership that trains public-school educators to teach computer skills, is just one excellent example.
At the same time, there should be a standing dialogue between tech leaders and elected officials. The organization Tech:NYC (on whose Leadership Council I serve) is already working to bring these two groups together. And the city should celebrate its homegrown startups at open Demo Days across the five boroughs to generate media coverage and capital.
We already have a far more diverse tech scene by gender and race than Silicon Valley’s, but we need to do more. Let’s launch a program that takes students from NYCHA housing and brings them into paid internship programs in our very own NYC startups.
One of the saddest parts of the Amazon failure is that it hurt the borough of Queens. Yes, Amazon is still planning to bring thousands of jobs to New York (roughly 8,000 to 10,000), but they will be in Manhattan, not Long Island City.
Tech innovation is bursting at the seams in all five boroughs and the tri-state region, not just in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We need to find and nurture startups that aren’t in the obvious places. How about a new angel funding network — OuterBoro Angels, | 3,540,639 |
Interview with Dave Coldwell, by Paul Zanon. See more Hannibal Boxing interviews >>
***
Speaking to Hannibal Boxing from the comfort of his car on a sunny Friday afternoon, an extremely chirpy Dave Coldwell opened with, “I’m loving life!”
Fresh off a training session with his super-welterweight charge, Anthony Fowler, Coldwell added, “I’ve got a great work-life balance. I’ve got a fantastic wife and kids, and spending my time with them is extremely important to me, that’s why I won’t work longer than 3 p.m., so I can go and pick my kids up [from school] and be around them.” It’s the dream that many fantasize about, but be under no illusion: Coldwell’s journey to reach his current peak was far from easy.
The proud Yorkshireman was born in what was then Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on July 6, 1975. He has no recollection of his birth country as his family moved to Sheffield, England when he was only eighteen months old. So why did boxing become a part of Coldwell’s life in his early teenage years? “Because I used to get absolutely terrorized at school! I was like your proper school wimp. I was the smallest and, as you can see, I haven’t really grown much since then! [Coldwell stands at a modest 5 ft 4 1/2 inches]. My dad was out of work back then. I was one of maybe four non-white kids in the school at the time [Coldwell’s father was white and his mother Indian].
“As well as having problems at school, I had a really bad childhood at home. I didn’t get on with my mother at all. She used to beat the shit out of me. I left home at fifteen and I was at a point where I needed to get some sort of confidence because I was always worried about what would happen when I got older. What would I do when I had kids and how would I have the confidence to bring them up? The way I was feeling then, was bad. As bad as you could get really. I was proper, proper low. I had a lot of bad thoughts in my head. If it wasn’t for boxing, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to keep on going.”
Coldwell grew up in a household where money was tight and he had to wear charity clothes and hand-me-downs. Intent on breaking the domestic mold, Coldwell sought employment but credits the discipline of the “boxer’s mindset” for his success. “I wouldn’t have anything I’ve got now if it wasn’t for boxing. I wasn’t a dumb kid, I just had no confidence whatsoever. I passed my exams and stuff like that and I started off working as a car valeter, then progressed to car sales, and later got myself a position as a floor manager in a big shop. The only reason I managed to be successful with things like that was because of boxing. Before boxing, I didn’t have the confidence to speak to anybody. I was very, very nervous. I’d start speaking to somebody I didn’t know and I’d just start sweating. I remember being in the [Wincobank] gym and speaking to Johnny Nelson and people like that, always conscious about making myself sound stupid. When you’re growing up and everyone is telling you that you’re never going to achieve anything, even your own mother, you go into the big wide world and you don’t think that you can do it. For me, it was at the gym, being surrounded by successful boxers and with Brendan’s [Ingle] input himself—that was the only stable thing I had in my life. That’s where I grew as a person. If it works for me, it can work for anybody.”
Straight-talking Coldwell discussed his amateur career and how failure became his biggest fuel for success and a key driver in life. “My amateur career! Ha ha! It was rubbish! To be fair, I’ll give myself a little bit of credit. I’m a perfect example to someone to show them that when it’s all going wrong, you have to keep on going, be determined, stubborn, ignore what negative people are telling you and you can make it.
“I lost my first eight amateur fights. In the gym, though, I was very good; but when it came to the actual fights, I would think to myself, ‘You get beat up every day. What are you doing stepping into the | 3,540,640 |
ring? You’re going to get smashed.’ As soon as the gloves and headguard went on, I’d mentally start falling apart. I’d say, ‘Please God. Let me win this one fight.’ I just wanted to win one. I just wanted to experience that feeling.
“I knew that I would have to go back to school and tell people that I got beat, again. You can spin it any way you want, ‘I got robbed,’ whatever—people don’t care. You got beat, you’re crap, you’re rubbish. Even teachers were saying, ‘What are you boxing for? You can’t box. You always lose.’ When people are constantly telling you that you can’t do it and then you go in the ring and get beat again, it’s heartbreaking.”
As a professional, Coldwell had nineteen fights, losing thirteen, but he did pick up the Central Area flyweight title. He discussed the true merits of his pro boxing journey. “The Area title? Not taking anything away from the belt, but for me as a person that doesn’t mean anything. I still deem it as failure. I’m not proud of my boxing career as a fighter. I look back and see it as my foundation of how I’ve been able to coach fighters now. Even the most competent of fighters will have moments of doubt and I can see that. I can bring them out of those moments, because I can identify them.
“Similar to when I was an amateur. I wasn’t scared of who I was fighting against, but more the fear of failure. Knowing I could still fail, I still went back into the ring, I still went through the ropes and I still fought. I think that is something you can say to people, say to fighters that have confidence issues, that it’s quite acceptable to have fear, to have a lack of confidence, but what isn’t acceptable is to walk away and give up. I never did that. I put my absolute everything into boxing. But being a fighter wasn’t my calling. My calling was to do what I’m doing now.”
It took almost a decade from the time of his retirement as a professional boxer in 2000 before he started to earn his stripes with distinction in the public eye as a bona fide boxing trainer, manager, and promoter.
Known as the man in Tony “Bomber” Bellew’s corner, Coldwell was quick to point out that his first major success was training the self-proclaimed “Spice Boy,” Ryan Rhodes. “When Ryan came to me, he was deemed as finished. Done. People thought he’d retired. His goal was to win a British title. That’s all he wanted. I also wanted him to do that, but more importantly I wanted him to get the fans’ respect. People saw him as a flash switch hitter, who had almost disappeared. I knew he had a hell of a lot still to give.
“To take him, not just to a British title, but then to win the European belt against Jamie Moore was a big win. Then obviously, fighting Canelo Alvarez for a WBC world title in 2011, that was a success. Not the result, but to exceed his career aspirations was a big thing.”
The first fighter Coldwell trained who became a world champion was Jamie McDonell. He attributes the success, however, to circumstances and timing. “Jamie had already been world champion. He’d already won the IBF bantamweight title [on May 11, 2013 against Julio Ceja]. Then a couple of years later on May 9, 2015, his coach wouldn’t get on the plane to go out to Texas [to defend his WBA world bantamweight title against Tomoki Kameda]. I was training Bellew at the time, so with twenty-four-hours’ notice I took Tony with me and got on a flight out there and trained Jamie for three weeks. Jamie won, then after that came the immediate rematch and we did an even better job that time around. That’s how it all started with Jamie.”
The blend of fighters and personalities that have passed under Coldwell’s tutelage is certainly eclectic, especially when you add former professional football [soccer] player Curtis Woodhouse into the mix. You can hear the enthusiasm in his voice rise at the mention of the Woodhouse. “Our Curtis! He was brilliant. He was such a laugh, but so driven. He’s a poster boy for anybody who doesn’t have a huge amount of natural talent but wants to fight, can fight | 3,540,641 |
, and is willing to learn and improve. When he first came to us, he was a southpaw. I said, ‘What you a southpaw for? It’s not effective. Are you left-handed?’ He says, ‘No.’ I then said, ‘Well come in tomorrow and let’s try everything orthodox.’ He came in the day after, shadowboxed, did a bit of pads, everything. I asked him after, ‘How does that feel?’ and he said, ‘Better.’ ‘That’s because you’re an orthodox fighter, not a southpaw!’ That’s how it started.
“What a man. We thought he was nuts initially. To give up football, which is a sport we all dream of doing, then coming into boxing with zero experience, apart from fighting in car parks and doing a bit of bag work and then to go into it properly is something special.
“The ride with him was brilliant. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. We had setbacks. He won, got beat, won, got beat, but that was just a tribute to his tenacity as he was being constantly ridiculed. Not a little bit, but constantly! Everyone would be saying to him, “Get back to football,” and stuff like that.”
Despite four losses in his first twenty fights, Woodhouse beat teak-tough Scotsman Dave Ryan to win the English super-lightweight title in 2012. He went on to win four out of his next six contests, before going in as the major underdog against Darren Hamilton, challenging the Londoner for his British super-lightweight title on June 22, 2014. Beating Woodhouse would have been Hamilton’s third successive defense of the coveted Lonsdale belt, securing him the belt outright and his place in history.
Woodhouse had other plans, though. After twelve hard-fought rounds, Woodhouse put on the performance of his life and did the unthinkable, winning the contest via split decision. Coldwell recalled. “When Curtis won that British title, it felt like a world title. It was mission accomplished. A very special feeling.”
With that high came the most shattering of blows, when Jerome Wilson, another of his fighters, suffered a severe brain injury against Serge Ambomo on September 12, 2014. Coldwell cast his mind back. “One hundred percent, that was my lowest point in boxing. That broke my heart.” Coldwell takes a breath before adding, “That was a massive kick in the nuts. That was horrible.”
Less than two years later, on May 29, 2016, Coldwell recalls one of British boxing’s iconic nights, when the thirty-three-year-old Bellew took on Ilunga Makabu for the vacant WBC cruiserweight world title. “Greatest night ever! Oh my God. Let’s take a step back. With Bellew, it’s never just been a trainer-boxer relationship. It was a weird dynamic. I’d always look after and care for him on the boxing side of things, but he always kind of looked after me outside of the gym as such. When we trained, he knew I was at the gym all day and because he had his food prepared, he’d bring a tub of food for me and he’d chuck me a protein bar and say, ‘Make sure you’re eating.’ And as a person? I learned a lot from him about life. He’s a very intellectual man.
“Back to the Makabu fight. I don’t sleep the night before a fight. I never can. I remember saying, ‘Please God let him win this fight. This means everything to him.’ He’d been going to this stadium [Goodison Park] ever since he was a little kid. He’s a mad, mad Everton fan. He’s more nuts about the football club more than any grown-up adult should ever be. I just knew what losing would do to him if he didn’t win that night. Also, I know his family and love them to bits. We’ve seen each other’s kids grow up over the years, so I knew what it meant to the whole family for him to win it.
“I remember on the night walking into Goodison and the sun was shining. The big crowd weren’t in yet. We were there early because I had Pricey [David Price] on earlier that night. By then a few people started to come in, but not a lot. Pricey got his fight | 3,540,642 |
out of the way, then it was all about Bellew.
“There was a point when he went out to look at the stadium on his own and then he’s walked back and he’s spotted his boy. Then he came back to the changing rooms and he was crying. I’ve said, ‘What’s happened, what’s happened?’ It was the worst feeling. We didn’t know what was going on. He’s bent over and tears are dropping over onto the floor. And bear in mind he’s about to go out and fight for a world title. Me and his good mate Gary had a chat with him and got his head back in the right place.
“Then as we started to warm up on the pads, he wasn’t firing properly. He didn’t seem focused. That’s when I had to kick everyone out of the changing room and said, ‘Right. I need to get him switched on here.’ His mind wasn’t right, but then we had a chat and his head flicked on like a switch. At that point, I knew he was ready for anything.
“When we walked out of that tunnel out onto the pitch. Oh my God. As long as I live, I’ll never forget that feeling. That stand to his left when we came out was bouncing as they were chanting his name. It was unbelievable. The introductions, everything was incredible. I can remember it right now so clearly. You couldn’t help keep looking around. I said to Tony, ‘Soak it up, enjoy it, but switch on and ignore everyone when that bell goes. Stick to your plan and what you’ve got to do.’”
Despite suffering a knockdown in the dying seconds of the opening round, Bellew rallied hard in the third to seal the contest in devastating fashion. Coldwell tells the tale as if still in the corner on fight night. “Those few seconds when Bellew got him on the ropes and he did right hand, drop, left hook, right hand, drop left hook and then the left hook cleans him out. Oh my God. I completely lost my shit. That was just the best feeling. I don’t understand how people can be emotionless and climb into the ring and try to be cool. Screw that! That’s where you let the emotions take control. I was so happy for him. Job done.”
Following an eighth-round stoppage loss to Oleksandr Usyk last November, Bellew hung up the gloves with his head held high. Despite the Bomber’s departure, Coldwell’s current cohort is showing promise to bring back more silverware to the Rotherham-based gym. “Anthony Fowler punches really, really hard, is brave and tough as they come, and wants to learn. He’s not the most fluid of boxers, but he’s developing and his boxing IQ is getting better; and as that’s happening, he’s becoming more of a dangerous fighter. He’s got attributes that suggest he could go all the way, but let’s take it one step at a time. I think he beats everyone domestically. Let’s see what happens when he dips his toe into European and fringe world level, because it’s a very, very tough division. You need to be more than just strong and tough to win that division, you need to be smart and he’s developing all the time into an intelligent fighter.”
Coldwell then moved on to his most recent recruit. “[Dereck] Chisora still has mileage on the clock. I was worried for him in the Takam fight because of the way he fought. He looked old there. But then in the Dillian Whyte fight, he was doing really well. But what I’ve seen in his first week with me, is improvement in the space of seven days. He’s fun, fits straight in with the lads, and he’s very coachable. He surprised me and I told him that. The way I teach my fighters, the same with Fowler, Jordan Gill, same with Tony, the McDonnell twins [Gavin and Jamie], they understand what I’m showing them. When they understand it, they want to do it. He’s picking things up quickly. I’m excited.”
With an exciting future ahead of him, Coldwell puts his wish list out there. “Jordan Gill becomes the superstar I expect him to be. As far as talent and potential is concerned, there’s no ceiling on this kid. He’s phenomenally talented. He’s | 3,540,643 |
* Plaques may be good, not bad, researchers say
* Free-floating proteins called ‘oligomers’ the real toxin
* Drugs that target plaques may be doomed to fail
* Studies raise doubts about bapineuzumab
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO, May 12 (Reuters) - Brain plaques, long considered the chief killer of brain cells and the cause of Alzheimer’s disease, may actually play a protective role under a new theory that is changing the way researchers think about the disease.
Instead of sticky plaques, free-floating bits of a toxic protein called amyloid beta may be what’s killing off brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients, U.S. researchers say.
If the theory is right, then drugs that target plaque, including bapineuzumab -- being developed by Pfizer PFE.N, Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N and Elan ELN.I -- may be aiming at the wrong target, they say.
“The plaque is not the main culprit in terms of toxicity,” said Dr. Scott McGinnis of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who treats Alzheimer’s patients and runs clinical trials testing new Alzheimer’s drugs.
For more than two decades, the prevailing plan of attack for researchers and drug companies has been to find a way to remove sticky clumps of a protein called amyloid beta from the brain.
But several recent studies in mice and rats now suggest that floating pieces of amyloid beta called oligomers are the real bad actors in Alzheimer’s disease.
And instead of being the chief toxin, several teams suspect, the plaques may be the body’s way of trapping and neutralizing oligomers.
“If you say Alzheimer’s, everyone immediately thinks that it’s the plaques that actually cause the disease. That couldn’t be further from the truth,” Andrew Dillin, of the Salk Institute in California and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, told reporters in London this week at a conference on aging.
“The data actually suggest these plaques are a form of protection that the body tries to put on. So this is a sign that your brain was trying to do something very useful and helpful to you, and the remnant was the formation of amyloid plaques,” Dillin said.
A GOOD THING?
Adrian Ivinson, who directs the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center in Boston, a drug discovery center affiliated with Harvard Medical School working on new Alzheimer’s drugs, said scientists are beginning to think plaque is a good thing.
“It actually sequesters all of that amyloid,” he said, adding that oligomers are “the really toxic substance.”
In the latest study, a team led by Dr. Sam Gandy of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York genetically engineered mice that form only oligomers, but never brain plaques.
They found these mice developed the same level of memory and thinking problems as genetically engineered mice that get both plaques and oligomers.
And when the team added a gene that converted the oligomers to plaques, the mice got no worse.
“That suggests that plaques were not necessary and the addition of plaque did not make the oligomer-induced memory problems any worse,” said Gandy, whose study appeared last month in the Annals of Neurology.
The findings may help explain the stunning failure of drugs designed to remove plaques from the brain of patients, which do little to improve thinking in Alzheimer’s patients.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia in which patients progressively lose their ability to think and care for themselves. Current drugs only treat symptoms.
LACK OF EFFECTS
Gandy points to a recent imaging study in Lancet Neurology looking at the drug bapineuzumab -- now in late-stage clinical trials.
The team used an imaging agent called Pittsburgh Compound B or PiB that can be used in brain scans to identify amyloid plaques. Using these scans in 28 patients, the team found that bapineuzumab shrank brain plaques by 25 percent, but Gandy said the drug had no effect on patients’ ability to think and reason.
“We don’t know whether bapineuzumab sees oligomers or not,” Gandy said in a telephone interview.
And because PiB can only see amyloid deposits and not floating clumps of oligomers, there is no way to know whether the drug is having any effect | 3,540,644 |
In the preceding posts, I discussed my conversion to the Trump Train, why Hillary is the demonic Satan Spawn from Hell and cannot be allowed to win, and why in the world Trump has received so much support despite the initial backlash. But now, with the election looming before us a mere days away, I thought I would end this series discussing why I think that Donald Trump will not only win, but why he will win in the biggest landslide since 1980.
I have adapted much of my article from this fantastic article I read a few months back. It was one of the few articles then that dared to question the mainstream anti-Trump onslaught, and it compiled so many great points that I was inspired to do a compilation of my own. So here’s why I think that Mr. Trump will win big-league on November 8th.
The Numbers
1. Primaries. You’ll hear Trump tout this a lot, but it truly is a remarkable feat. Among a total of 17 initial candidates, many of whom survived to Super Tuesday, Donald Trump still won the most votes of any Republican in Republican party history. 14.01 million. That was only with 45% of the vote. He completely shattered Bush’s record of 12.09 million, even when Bush received 62% of the vote when the field was far less divided. In comparison to the Democrats, the percentages are looking great too. Democrats cast 8 million less votes than in 2008 (I didn’t look at 2012 because incumbent turnout is always lower), a decrease of 21%. Republicans cast 10.2 million more votes compared to 2008 and 11.9 million more votes compared to 2012 (Yes, there were more Republican votes in 2008. Romney…so low energy). That’s an increase of 49% since 2008 and 62% since 2012!
This is huge, y’all. Democrats typically overtake Republicans in primary turnout, but this year we broke 31 million and beat the Democrats in turnout by over 1 million! Even with Bernie Sanders in the race, the Democrats clearly were not happy with their choices. And with Hillary Clinton being their nominee, that’s not likely to change, especially since some polls are reporting 30% of the Bernie Bros coming to Trump — just as Trump predicted.
2. Rallies and social media. Political scientists will scorn me for this, but frankly I think it’s too glaring not to mention. They may not be perfectly reliable numbers, but they’re still numbers. And unlike polls, they’re raw numbers. They’re flawed, but at least we know they’re flawed. They are not purposefully deceptive like many of these absurd media polls (a month before the election and there’s a poll with Clinton up 12? Gimme a break. And yes, I did check most of the poll methodologies. In short, they’re biased, vague, and a disgrace to modern science. But I’ll save that hefty analysis for another day. Just know that we were right and they oversample Democrats by 7-12%).
As many of you have probably noticed, Trump’s crowd’s are enormous. YUGE in fact. Tens of thousands show up consistently, often with overflow crowds of thousands more. The Austin rally I was at had about eight or nine thousand, but hey, it’s Austin, and that’s still an impressive number. Hillary can barely fill a high school gym with 500 people, let alone nine thousand. Sometimes she gets a thousand or two (occasionally three), but it’s never much more than that. Check out her sad numbers in comparison to Trump’s here. Notice too that’s Trump’s numbers are pretty conservative, because I can tell you for certain that there were way more than 6500 people at the Austin rally. That stadium could hold 10,000 if you wanted, and except for a section in the corner (bad view. People stood instead), it was packed.
What about other candidates? Certainly they had big crowds too? Yes, but not as many nor as consistently. Romney only passed 20K after his nomination, and McCain couldn’t even hope to get at least that much. Obama got crowds of 35K, 85K, and even 100K in St. Louis, but hey, that’s Obama. And look, he won! Can’t be that useless of a measurement. At the very least, they’re great for measuring enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is key for voter turnout.
Now let’s look at social media. This analysis is from August, so the numbers are obviously higher now (e.g. FB: 11.8M for Trump, 7.6M for Clinton; Twitter: 12.8M Trump, 10.1 M Clinton), but the general trends still stand. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, | 3,540,645 |
and even Instagram — Trump has more followers on every single one of these platforms. Even then, Hillary’s Facebook page has a ceaseless slew of anti-Hillary comments on almost every single post. It’s incredibly hilarious. And on Reddit, the Hillary For Prison feed has more subscribers than Hillary’s actual page. The real devastation is in the live streams though. On Youtube, RSBN actively has anywhere from 15K to 20K people watching live. Any of the Hillary streams barely break 1000, and again even then the comments are negative. On Facebook live, Trump gets anywhere from 16K on other pages to 72K on his actual page, while Clinton can’t even break 1000 on some pages and gets to 5K on her own page. But yet again, most of the Clinton live stream comments are negative! It’s even more comical to see the giant line of angry faces fly across the screen:
And let’s not forget the memes and hundreds of thousands of Trump-related creative videos all over Youtube. Everything from Batman to anime to thug life, and most of them get anywhere from thousands to millions of views. Check out this You Can’t Stump the Trump series:
Millions of people on Trump’s social media, tens of thousands of people live online and at rallies, thousands of creative Trump videos all over Youtube, and you’re telling me Hillary’s winning? You can tell me that with a straight face? As much as I respect political scientists, they could use a bit of common sense every once in a while. But wait, I hear them say. Surely these numbers do not reflect the actual electorate, right? Perhaps, but then you’d have to apply the same argument to Hillary. If only Trump fanatics are going to Trump rallies, then only Hillary fanatics are going to Hillary rallies. Of course, we all know it’s not that simple.
So should we believe these figures? I’d say we should take them with a grain of salt, but we certainly shouldn’t discount them entirely. Especially the social media stuff. In the growing days of technology, it would be great if political scientists found ways to quantify these trends to help predict elections (Google is certainly trying! Check out the Google Trends for Obama vs Romney and Trump vs. Clinton. Trump is crushing her!). And for crying out loud, if we really want to discredit rally size sufficiently, why do we not have tabulated masses of data and trendlines showing this to be the case? I’m sure it wouldn’t be all that difficult.
3. Models. There are two big mathematical models created by political scientists that have predicted a Trump win. Dr. Allan Lichtman used his 13 Keys model (more details here) to predict a Trump victory. It takes into account various economic, political, and social factors, such as incumbency and social unrest. The model has accurately predicted the winner of the popular vote since 1984.
Likewise, Dr. Helmut Norpoth calculates an 87% chance of a Trump victory according to his Primary Model (more details here). His model uses primary results and the “pendulum swing” of parties every election cycle to predict the winner. The model predicted the past five elections correctly (in terms of popular vote), and retroactively it predicted every election since 1912 except the 1960 election (which was very close).
4. History. If you still have lingering doubts about these numbers, here’s one final nail in the coffin (check out this article to follow along). Since 1836, we have had 20 elections without an incumbent running. Of these 20 elections, the out-party won 13 times, or 65%. Of the 7 that the in-party won, 5 of these were won by Republicans (71%). Digging deeper, the numbers get even better. Today we are in what political scientists dub a “competitive party era,” meaning that parties are so competitively equivalent that elections tend to be close calls. Looking at the eight open-seat elections from competitive party eras (4 from 1868-1892, 4 from 1968-2008), the out-party won 4 out of 7 (57%). But here’s the kicker. Of the three that the in-party won, all of them were Republicans. In fact, an in-party Democrat successor has not won the general election since 1856. How about them apples?
The Strategy
5. Marketing. Despite Trump’s unconventional, unpolished mannerisms and seemingly unintelligent speaking style, in hindsight the man is a marketing genius. Some have speculated that his controversial antics earned him over $3 billion in media coverage without spending a penny of his own money. This idea of free coverage hit me like a ton of bricks whenever I saw someone post this marketing funnel:
You can’t sell a | 3,540,646 |
product without getting your name out there first. For better or worse, Donald Trump wanted everyone to know of his existence, and what better way to do so than by stirring up juicy headlines? In his own words, “Controversy sells.” He very well could have stood up there and acted presidential and professional like the rest of them if he wanted to, and believe it or not, he is quite capable of doing so (check out his old interviews). Yet in our age of technology, entertainment, professional politics, big money, and intense media scrutiny, he knew that if he wanted to win, he had to play by a different set of rules. And boy did it pay off “big league.”
Once he got his name out there, the rest was smooth sailing (marketing-wise anyway). In fact, I’ve never seen a Republican utilize as much social media as this man has. And thank the Lord for it, because heaven knows when the GOP would have ever grown a brain and actually tried to compete with the Democrats. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Reddit. He even did a Reddit Q&A on a plane ride once. Yet his Twitter is arguably not just one part of his campaign (#MAGA #TrumpTrain#CrookedHillary #DrainTheSwamp), but a central foundational element of it. Remember how much the media covered his Tweets in the early days of his campaign? They were all over headlines! But of course, his supporters didn’t care all too much. After all this time, his Tweets simply remind us of who he is and who he will always be, a no-nonsense straight-shooter who loves this country and wants to make it great again. And we love him for it.
In addition to marketing himself fantastically, he also markets his enemies into total annihilation. The Democrats have been masters of Alinsky-style name-calling tactics, labelling Republicans everything from racist to sexist to bigoted to homophobic to Islamophobic, etc. But the problem is that these labels don’t stick. They have no substance. When you examine them more carefully, you’ll find that they, for the most part, simply don’t hold up to scrutiny. And frankly, they’re just really negative. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has taken their tactic and perfected it better than they could ever hope to achieve. Instead of strict name-calling, he calls his opponents “Lyin’ Ted,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Low-energy Jeb,” and “Little Marco.” And they stick. They become a part of every meme, hashtag, and headline imaginable. They’re fun, they’re entertaining, and they’re not those lame negative names Democrats keep using. And of course, they have substance. Hillary is crooked, Jeb is boring and low energy, and Ted is a big fat snake liar. “Little Marco” is really the only one that’s just for giggles. But, considering Trump’s discussion of the size of his “hands,” it’s yet another genius recipe to establish his enemies as inferior — they’re either corrupt or beta-males. Hats off to you, Mr. Trump. You truly are the alpha.
Lastly, here are a couple great videos that go into even further detail on Trump’s words and powers of persuasion. They really blew my mind, especially the “5 Mental Tricks” video.
6. Charisma. The man has incredible energy. He’s like a rockstar. Everywhere he goes, he exudes this immense stage presence of strength and dominance, like he’s a person you don’t want to mess with and can get things done. This perception of him is of course further pronounced in all of the Republican debates, where he beta-males all those wussies into submission (even at the debate he wasn’t at!). At his rallies he’s much more fun-loving and laid back, but because he’s connecting with his base it actually makes him look like an even greater alpha. I mean, talk about stamina! He’ll often hold 2-3 rallies per day with other stops in between, even on weekends. It’s insane.
Something that at least partly contributes to his rockstar status is his success, both as a businessman and as a celebrity. He was a star of one of the most successful reality television shows for over ten years. His name is on buildings and resorts all over the world, and it’s on every other product you can imagine from clothes and wines to water, steaks, and magazines. He’s a builder. He’s created hundreds of thousands of jobs and brings wealth and prosperity to | 3,540,647 |
everything he touches. His work ethic, energy, and success remind us of the untapped potential residing within the American spirit — that amazing things can be accomplished if we just set our minds to it. He truly embodies what it means to be an American.
Hillary doesn’t have any of that. She has the energy of an old, robotic, granny seahag with the temperament of a two-year-old schoolgirl on bipolar medication. She is a pathological liar with nothing but 30 years of America-hating baggage and corruption under her belt. She never built anything. She never helped anyone outside her sphere of money-grubbing, ivory tower elites. She’s a typical “all talk no action” politician, and the American people want no more of that.
The Culture
7. The country is sick. When I was against Trump’s candidacy, I was thinking far too idealistically. I didn’t see the forest for the trees. But then I started thinking like a doctor. This country is sick. People are hurting. The economy is terrible. We’re $19 trillion in debt. People have lost their jobs and businesses to NAFTA, high taxation, and absurd regulations, while illegals and refugees are treated like royalty and get all the jobs and money. Trump sure wasn’t lying about growth either. GDP was 0.8% in the first quarter of this year and 1.4% in the second quarter. Horrible. Now it’s 2.9% for Lord-knows what reason. Probably some nonsense stimulus Obama created to try to save his precious Queen in time for the election.
Likewise, families, businesses, and doctors have been crippled by Obamacare. Premiums and deductibles are absurd, and many citizens and insurance companies are simply backing out of the marketplace and have even found ways to get their customers around the penalty. It sucks so much that it’s crumbling in on itself, but not nearly fast enough. Our family’s been in health insurance for over twenty years, and because of Obamacare we’re having to work twice as hard just to make less money (sound familiar?). No more. Repeal and Replace!
Arguably worst of all, we are a nation bleeding on the inside. Race relations are terrible, no thanks to Obama and the Soros-funded gang of violent, looting, highway-blocking thugs known as the Black Lives Matter movement. Police are murdered and treated like trash, with no gratitude whatsoever for everything they do. It is a level of division that would make MLK turn over in his grave. Drugs and illegal aliens are allowed to pour in across the border, and many of the criminal aliens get away with rape and murder without proper justice. ISIS and radical Islam has spread like a cancer across the world, including to our own shores. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Boston, San Bernardino, Orlando, and now recently New York and New Jersey. How many more innocent people have to die before we get the picture? How many more Americans have to die? How much longer can we hold onto this dire need for political correctness and molly-coddling under an absurd banner of diversity and compassion until we can name our enemy and actually protect our citizens? And now we want to let in refugees from the regions trying to kill us when we cannot properly vet them? The same people who single-handedly turned Europe into a dirty rapefugee cesspool? It’s insane. The safety of our citizens should be our utmost priority. America first. Donald Trump is the candidate of Law and Order, and he will make our country safe again.
We’re also bleeding from inside the government itself. People are sick of our values and love of country being eroded under an anti-American administration that panders to the Cult of Social Justice and allows it to spread like a cancer (i.e. feminism), sick of Obama wielding exorbitant power and doing whatever he wants while Congress does nothing, sick of nine judges legislating their corrupt agenda onto 300 million people, and sick of politicians who do not represent them in any way — who put on a big smile onstage and claim to have the American people’s best interests at heart, while behind-the-scenes they are only interested in strengthening themselves and their donors. Forget Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct, forget the ridiculous sexual accusations against Trump. These people have brutally raped America herself for the past several decades. No more. Donald Trump is beholden to no one except us. What you see is what you get. America first.
If there’s anything my physician shadowing taught me, it’s that you always listen to your patients. You never look down on them, you never treat them as second-rate, and you certainly never ignore their concerns. And at all costs, you do everything in your power to make life better for them. Donald | 3,540,648 |
Trump is our nation’s physician. He hears our cries, our pains, our heartaches, and he wants to do everything he can to bring us healing. He is our voice, and he will be our greatest champion.
8. Unity and patriotism. All that hurt, all that pain, all those desperate cries going unheard. But then Donald Trump comes along, and I see a level of joy and patriotism the likes of which I have never seen before in the faces of my fellow Americans. Pure, unabated joy and love for one’s country. Frankly, Trump supporters are some of the most optimistic, wonderful people I’ve ever met. You know how stadiums are usually quiet during the national anthem? Well, imagine a stadium full of 10,000 people actually singing the national anthem together. Chanting “USA, USA, USA” over and over again. Those are his rallies. It’s incredible. Black or white, man or woman, gay or straight, Hispanic or non-Hispanic, Democrat or Republican — all of us, from every creed, color, and background — even people who have never voted for 10, 20 years, or even their whole lives — are uniting behind Donald Trump. It’s not just amazing, it’s extraordinary. Don’t let the media fool you. It’s not just a bunch of straight white dudes supporting him. It’s everyone.
As Pastor Mark Burns says, “The only colors that matter are the colors of the red, white, and blue!” Here are some great numbers for you: Rasmussen has been doing a tracking poll of African Americans, and as of October 25th, Trump is at 16%! And on October 13th, he reached a high of 24%. Do y’all realize how huge this is? Romney got 5% of the black vote in 2012. Five. Whether or not these Rasmussen polls are accurate, it’s clear that Donald Trump has gotten far more black support than Romney, McCain, or their ilk could ever hope to get. Black pastors especially. They see their communities hurting, and they’re tired of it. Tired of Democrats and politicians of all stripes doing nothing for them. No more.
That said, I find it incredible that Donald Trump does things that are unheard of for Republicans, things that Democrats have traditionally had a monopoly over and that citizens have been practically begging Republicans to do as well. We’re supposed to be the party of Lincoln, the party of unity, so why do we allow the Democrats to take plantation control over blacks, Hispanics, women, and LGBT citizens? It’s ridiculous. But then Donald Trump comes along, and he says no more. He goes straight to the inner cities, the black churches, the black communities, and he tells them, “What the hell do you have to lose?” Just as it rightfully was after the Civil War, Donald Trump wants the Republican party to once more be the home of the African American and the African American vote. The reign of the Democrat plantation is over. The era of unity has arrived.
There’s more. He goes to the women and tells them he’s going to provide childcare and maternity leave without crippling small businesses, he goes to Hispanics and tells them he’s going to stop illegal immigration so that they have more jobs, he goes to the Haitians and tells them he’s going to revive Haiti from Clinton corruption, he goes to the veterans and tells him he’s going to overhaul the VA, he goes to the evangelicals and tells them he’s going to repeal the Johnson Amendment and appoint pro-life justices, he goes to the LGBT community and tells them he’s going to stop radical Islamic terrorism and keep them safe, he goes to the teachers and tells them that he’s going to repeal Common Core and bring school choice, he goes to the farmers and tells them he’s going to stop the regulations crippling their farms, he goes to the coal miners and tells them he’s going to put them back in business, he goes to the manufacturers and tells them he’s bringing their jobs back from Mexico and China, and he goes to heroin-stricken communities and tells them he’s going to stop the drugs from pouring in.
Take a moment and let all that soak in. What politician would ever do something like this? What politician would ever hold round tables and town halls with all of these groups of people specifically addressing their concerns? The man sincerely cares. He doesn’t hold a position because it’ll get him votes, but simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Which brings me to why this movement is so special. Everything Donald Trump does, every policy position he holds is centered around Americanism. His tax policy, trade policy, immigration | 3,540,649 |
policy (WALL!), healthcare policy, foreign policy, etc. are all about America first. Fundamentally, that’s why I think people support him. They don’t care too much about the specifics of each policy, they just care about what it means to them. Because at the end of the day this isn’t a policy war, this is a culture war. Our country was founded upon a spirit of courage, unity, patriotism, and an unwavering desire to do what’s right, and that is not a spirit that can be easily subdued. It’s in our blood. Yet for the past 100 years, the elites and progressives have desperately tried to squelch it. They tried to divide us, tried to destroy us from the inside. They thought they had succeeded, they thought they had won. But then Donald Trump steps into the fray, and he single-handedly reminds us that that spirit never left us. He merely tapped into something visceral inside all of us, and now the sleeping giant is awake. America is back.
This is our country, and no one can tell us otherwise. We want leaders who love our country, who will work for us and not themselves, and like our Founding Fathers before us, we will do whatever it takes to secure that end.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
9. God’s hand is on him. Finally, I sincerely believe God has His hand on this man. By every stretch of the imagination, he should have had no chance at winning the nomination. Every credible political scientist scoffed at his candidacy. Typically, insurgents gain a temporary bump in the polls, but then their candidacy plummets as the media scrutinizes every nook and cranny of their laundry list and blasts them with negative coverage. And without establishment support, they usually don’t recover. Not so with Donald Trump. The media kept attacking, yet Trump kept on winning. No matter how much negative coverage he got, the man seemed practically invincible. I don’t think that’s something you can explain entirely with facts alone.
Every election cycle, we bemoan the dreaded decision of picking between the “lesser of two evils.” But with this election, I honestly believe it is a battle of good versus evil. Hillary Clinton is the most vile, wicked, corrupt human being to ever run for the presidency. She wouldn’t just be the first woman president, she’d be the first criminal president. And what happens when you elect criminals? This wonderful young man says it best:
Donald Trump may not be a perfect man, but he is a good man. He loves this country and wants to save it from a looming destiny of destruction. He took all these attacks from every possible direction simply because he knew he had to. He had to do what was right, at any cost. And I became even more convinced of this fundamental battle when I began witnessing good, amazing people flocking to him, praying over him for his continued strength and protection (see below). The prayer shawl video especially got to me. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this with any presidential candidate in my life. Yet here we are, roomfulls of great Christians from all colors and creeds praying for a man they truly believe God has chosen for such a time as this.
Conclusions
I truly believe that thirty, forty years from now, Donald Trump will be lauded as a great American hero. Like Ronald Reagan before him, he will become a legend woven into America history. Yet, for all these good things, it would serve us well to also remember the negatives — to remember the hell he went through to get there. For as much as we love legends, nothing quite compares to a tale of great struggle. It belies human nature and strikes us at our very core. It reminds us that in order to do something truly great and achieve the impossible (or just do the right thing), we often have to make enemies and throw a few punches. And no one | 3,540,650 |
This computer simulation shows a cross-section of the plasma inside a tokamak reactor. In this simulation, only the large-scale turbulence effects are modeled — which is adequate for some cases, but not for others. The MIT researchers were able to develop a model that incorporates both scales of eddies at once, providing better predictions. Video courtesy of Nathan Howard
A longstanding joke holds that practical fusion power is about 20 years away — and always will be.One simple phenomenon explains why practical, self-sustaining fusion reactions have proved difficult to achieve: Turbulence in the superhot, electrically charged gas, called plasma, that circulates inside a fusion reactor can cause the plasma to lose much of its heat. This prevents the plasma from reaching the temperatures needed to overcome the electrical repulsion between atomic nuclei — which, in turn, prevents those nuclei from fusing together. But in order to tame that turbulence, scientists first must understand it.Researchers at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have now taken a significant step in that direction by quantifying a previously unknown type of small-scale turbulence that can have big effects on cooling the plasma in a reactor. Their results were published online in the journal, and further described in a recent talk at a conference called the U.S.-E.U. Joint Transport Task Force Workshop.Previously, a mathematical model known as gyrokinetics has been used to predict the effects of turbulence in a standard fusion reactor called a tokamak — but the MIT researchers found that while the model works in some cases, it breaks down in others. “Whenever a certain type of turbulence is present, the model works,” says Nathan Howard, a PSFC postdoc who is the lead author of the new report. “But when this other kind is present, it doesn’t work.”Understanding this discrepancy, known as a transport shortfall, could be crucial in predicting the performance of larger experimental fusion reactors that are now under development, the researchers say. These new reactors, in turn, are seen as a key step toward the eventual development of commercial power-producing reactors.Fusion, the reaction that powers the sun, has long been seen as a nearly ideal energy source: Its fuel supply, hydrogen, is effectively limitless, and fusion would produce little radioactive waste. But the challenges of making fusion work have been unexpectedly daunting.Tokamak reactors consist of a large donut-shaped space surrounded by heat-resistant shielding material and powerful magnetic coils. Magnetic fields prevent the plasma inside, consisting of hydrogen atoms that are heated to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius, from contacting the walls of the chamber, which would vaporize from the heat.Two processes predominate in the loss of heat from these multimillion-degree plasmas: loss through electrons and loss through ions. “The prevailing model has been that both can be accounted for by just modeling the large eddies,” Howard says.But experiments conducted by researchers including Anne White, the Norman C. Rasmussen Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) at MIT, found discrepancies: About twice as much heat was being lost as the model predicted in experiments at a San Diego tokamak reactor called DIII-D, but not at the very similar Alcator C-Mod reactor at MIT.White, who is a co-author of the new paper, says that by showing that the discrepancy did not occur in the MIT reactor, “We showed that the DIII-D shortfall was not a general thing. Now, we finally have a second tokamak to explore, and we found it’s not there.”It turned out, the researchers found, that the discrepancy happened when the heat loss was mainly through electrons, but not when it was through ions.“We demonstrated for the first time that this phenomenon was not universal,” says Howard, who was able, with his colleagues, to attribute the discrepancy to fine-scale turbulence. “We have been able to simulate all the different types of turbulence in order to explain the experimental results.”“We were not modeling the tiny eddies,” White adds. “There are two types of turbulence, and we need to model both.” The new finding shows the inadequacy of “a standard model that we’ve been using for a long time,” she says, “so this result is kind of striking.”“We need to convince ourselves that our model can correctly predict the performance of our existing reactors, so that we can then predict the performance of reactors we haven’t yet built,” Howard says. So far, Howard and White have shown that running simulations with the improved model, which includes both large and small eddies, seems to fit that bill.Terry Rhodes, a researcher in the physics and astronomy department at the University of California at Los Angeles who was not involved in this research | 3,540,651 |
“President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, by a hidden assassin armed with a high-powered rifle” - So begins the lead story on the front page of The Irish Times on November 23rd, 1963, one day after the president was shot dead as he travelled in a presidential motorcade.
A portrait of the president sits prominently in the centre of the page, underneath the headline and subhead: “KENNEDY IS ASSASSINATED - Dying statesman collapses into his wife’s arms.”
Page 1, November 23rd, 1963
On the left-hand-side of the page, a smirking Lee Harvey Oswald “holds up his manacled hands” following his arrest in connection with the shooting. The 24-year-old assassin would himself be the subject of the lead story two days later.
The remainder of the front page is devoted to coverage the killing, particularly Irish tributes, save for two ads; one for Odearest mattresses and another for Martell Cognac. A brief weather report features, too - cloudy, with outbreaks of rain.
“From all over Ireland messages of sympathy were sent to the American Embassy in Dublin,” begins the offlead to the right of the late president’s face. Much of coverage in the coming days touched on the “Irish angle” and the impression the president had made on his visit to the Republic five months beforehand.
President Éamon de Valera issued his condolences by telegram: “The whole Irish people mourn in sympathy with you. Their hearts go out to you and we pray that the soul of your husband, who had become so dear to us here, may now be with God in Heaven and that the Holy Spirit may give you His conciliation in this hour of terrible sorrow for you.”
The Irish president had appeared on Telefís Éireann the night before: “You will all have heard of the tragic death of President Kennedy,” he said, according to the report. “I am here simply to give public expression to our common sorrow. We sympathise with all the people of the United States but, in particular, with his grief-stricken wife and the other members of his family.”
In the next part of his address, Mr de Valera mentioned the visit, which was commemorated again on page 6 with a collection of photographs taken by Irish Times photographers at the time.
JFK and de Valera on the evening of the US president’s arrival
Page 6, 1963: ‘The climax of the first great welcome as Presiden Kennedy’s motorcade crosses O’Connell Bridge, Dublin. The cheering and excitement were echoed and increased as, later, the President visited New Ross, Wexford, Cork, Galway and Limerick.’
‘Gossip ceased’
The news of the assassination reached the people of Dublin before the story hit the papers on the 23rd. “It was as if news had come of the sudden death of a son or a father,” wrote former Irish Times diplomatic correspondent Wesley Boyd on page 8. “At first no one wanted to believe that it was true, but as the radio and television bulletins came in, hope gave way to sorrow. Laughter died and gossip ceased.”
The country, Boyd wrote, stopped to mourn: “The news travelled fast, as sad news will. In the streets of Dublin people crowded round the windows of television shops to watch in respectful silence the special programmes. On buses and on trains, in pubs, in dance halls and restaurants the news was received in shocked amazement.”
Elsewhere, political reporters speculated about a crisis within US politics: “President Kennedy’s death will undoubtedly transform the political scene in the United States,” reads a piece on page 7.
Robert Kennedy holds his sister in law’s hand as the president’s casket is placed into an ambulance
“There was no doubt that he would have been the Democratic Party candidate in next November’s election. He would also have been a strong favourite to win again although he lost ground recently over his administration’s civil rights fund.”
The Irish Times view on the deceased president was one of praise: “His youth and vitality promised great things for the United States; he brought a freshness of mind to bear on the gulf which separates one part of the world from the other,” reads an editorial on the day following the assassination. Like Abraham Lincoln, Kennedy was cut down “mid-flight”, it said.
“Whatever form of hatred lay behind the assassin’s gun, it is to be hoped that the only lesson to | 3,540,652 |
I'm a sucker for all the "best of" lists that appear at the end of the year, but they do get repetitive. This year we'll see an avalanche of game roundups that include Journey and The Walking Dead, among other deserving games. Just for fun, what do you say we try something a little different?
I've been thinking about things that stuck with me playing games this year. Little moments. Surprises. Disappointments. People who made me stop and think. So I decided to make my own highly subjective list to account for them. Here are a few of my favorite things (and one not-so-favorite), 2012 edition.
[Feel free to add your own "X of the Year" categories and winners in the comments below. I based these on my own experiences. I hope you'll do the same.]
Mechanic of the Year - Dishonoured's Blink
"Blinking" in Dishonored was the most fun I've had since donning a Tanooki suit in Super Mario Bros. 3. When a game mechanic encourages you to abandon all pretense of story or progress and simply fool around with it for hours on end, that's the mark of a fun mechanic. Blink (the ability to instantly teleport short distances undetected) is the core tool in Dishonored's strategy arsenal, so it had better feel like butter. And it does. Like any well designed mechanic, it's also multipurpose, useful in various situations (e.g. climbing, sneaking, fleeing, exploring). In 2012 Assassin's Creed 3 gave us a Dissociative Identity Disorder assassin hurtling through trees, but I'll take a failed bodyguard blinking his way around steampunk Dunwall any day.
NPC of the Year - Kenny in The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is the first game I've played that can truly be spoiled by spoilers, so I won't say anything too specific about Kenny. I will say that 90% of all media (not just games) that depict characters like Kenny present him as an ignorant chaw-chomping redneck spouting homespun "wisdom" for comic relief. Kenny in The Walking Dead is a man you can't size up in a glance. Telltale wisely refused to dull his sharp edges or dismiss him as foil, sidekick, or obstacle. He's a man with a family in an impossible situation. That Kenny appears, flaws and all, in The Walking Dead sans dramaturgically convenient devices attached is a testament to the ongoing maturation of storytelling in games.
Comeback of the Year - PC gaming
Some time in the mid-1990s we began hearing the death knell for PC gaming, and that bell hasn't stopped ringing...until this year. 2012 was the year PC games reemerged as a dominant platform for gaming, thanks to several converging factors: 1.) The ubiquity of Steam and its status as the industry model for digital distribution 2.) All three major consoles reaching the ends of their life-cycles 3.) Developers no longer ignoring or shipping sloppy ports to PC. Nearly all cross-platform AAA games released on PC this year were on-par or superior to console versions 4.) Indie games taking root on the PC, aided by Humble Bundles, Steam sales, and less onerous gatekeeping. To be fair, 2012 was a good year for PSN indie games too. But if you peruse the entries for the upcoming IGF competition at GDC, you'll find that most solo and small-team devs are targeting two primary markets: PC and mobile/tablet. My students overwhelmingly chose the PC over consoles for their term paper games this year, even when console SKUs were available. Anecdotal, yes, but that's never happened before.
Happiest Moment of the Year - Mark of Ninja Credits
The biggest smile I got playing a 2012 game arrived at the end of Mark of the Ninja, one of the best games of the year. The very first name to appear when the credits rolled was "Lead Designer - Nels Anderson." Moments later, "Writer - Chris Dahlen." If you've followed my work here, you know how much I love and respect these two guys. It's tremendously encouraging to know that sometimes the good guys really do win. Play this game, people.
Hardware of the Year - Wii U Gamepad
I have no idea if Nintendo's new console will succeed, but I do know I love its Gamepad controller. Despite a bulky appearance in photographs, the device feels fabulous to hold. It fits naturally in my hands, not too heavy or light, with a sharp and bright screen. Concerns about lag between the gamepad and big screen have evaporated. A coming-soon Google Maps app looks stunning. ZombieU is a solid early clinic on two-screen design. Yeah, battery life could be better. But Miiverse doesn't suck like we thought it would | 3,540,653 |
Tech quiet on Trump’s EU barb Presented by Ericsson
With help from John Hendel and Steven Overly
TECH QUIET ON TRUMP’S EU BARB — President Donald Trump has come to the defense of Google — well, sort of. Trump tweeted early Thursday that the European Union had “taken advantage of the U.S.” by slapping a $5 billion fine on one of its “great companies,” warning, “but not for long!” The remarks came a day after the European Commission imposed a record antitrust penalty on Google as it ramps up enforcement efforts. But Trump’s comments drew a muted response from the U.S. tech industry. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment on Trump’s comment, and three trade groups representing the tech giant — the Information Technology Industry Council, the Internet Association and NetChoice — had no comment.
— A defense of Google, or an attack on Europe? Tech industry observers told MT the president’s remarks appeared to be more about his ongoing trade dispute with Europe than about taking a stand against antitrust efforts to crack down on Google. “This doesn’t mean he has any particular fondness for Google or fondness for antitrust,” said TechFreedom President Berin Szóka. “This just fits his preconceived notion that Europe is our enemy.” John Simpson, director of the Privacy Project at Consumer Watchdog, said “Trump is using the Google case to fan the fires of a completely unnecessary trade war with Europe.”
— A dash of irony: Trump’s tweet had an America First feel to it, but the situation isn’t quite so simple. “Many of the companies raising antitrust concerns against Google in Europe are also U.S. companies,” noted Simpson. Indeed, it was FairSearch, a lobby group supported at the time by Microsoft, that filed the complaint with the European Commission accusing Google’s Android of anti-competitive practices back in April 2013. And who was first lady Melania Trump meeting with just hours after Trump bashed the EU’s decision? You guessed it: Microsoft.
— All eyes on the FTC and DOJ: While Trump clearly sided with Google, it’s not clear how his top antitrust enforcement agencies — the Justice Department and the FTC — will come down on the matter. FTC Chairman Joe Simons said earlier this week that he plans to "look closely at what the EU is doing,” while cautioning that any U.S. enforcement approach is likely to look different from that of the EU. And a DOJ antitrust division spokesperson said they “look forward to analyzing the Commission’s decision carefully when it becomes available.”
— Meanwhile, on the Hill: Lawmaker reaction to the EU’s fine continues to trickle in. “The EC’s attack on Google is another strike against its credibility as a regulator,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a staunch tech industry supporter, said in a statement. And Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents part of Silicon Valley, offered a particularly pointed non-response. “Since this matter is under appeal, I’m going to withhold commenting on the proposed five billion dollar transfer of wealth from California to Europe,” she said in an email.
GOOD MORNING AND WELCOME TO MORNING TECH, where your host cannot believe he is actually hoping perennial ball-stopper Carmelo Anthony joins his Miami Heat. Got any tech or telecom tips? Drop me a line at [email protected] or @viaCristiano. Don’t forget to follow us @MorningTech. And catch the rest of the team’s contact info after Quick Downloads.
Catch all the highlights from Tuesday's Pro Summit. Video clips, event content and more are now available from a full day of incisive policy conversations. View Summit Highlights.
View the latest POLITICO/AARP poll to better understand Arizona voters over 50, a voting bloc poised to shape the midterm election outcome. Get up to speed on priority issues for Hispanic voters age 50+, who will help determine whether Arizona turns blue or stays red.
What role will Hispanic voters over 50 play in Arizona this fall? Read POLITICO Magazine's new series "The Deciders" which focuses on this powerful voting bloc that could be the determining factor in turning Arizona blue.
MERGE MADNESS — It has been a pivotal week for telecom mergers and acquisitions. Here’s a rundown of where we stand on a series of blockbuster deals:
— Sky’s the limit for Comcast? Comcast brought an end to its bidding war with Disney for the bulk of 21st Century Fox assets, with the company announcing it will instead focus its effort to acquire British media-telecom | 3,540,654 |
firm Sky. But will that take Disney out of the running for Sky? As The Wall Street Journal points out, “The rational move would be for Disney to leave Sky to Comcast, lowering the risk of its purchase of the other Fox assets and quieting the loser with a consolation prize. In a drama of outsize media egos, however, reason may not prevail.” But with the BCC now reporting that Comcast is “likely” to become the new owner of Sky, the high-stakes bidding war between the companies may soon be coming to a close.
— Sinclair-Tribune on life support: Tribune Media said Thursday, after the FCC voted to send its proposed merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group to a likely death, that it’s evaluating the implications and assessing its options. "We will be greatly disappointed if the transaction cannot be completed, but will rededicate our efforts to running our businesses and optimizing assets,” the company said. The merger agreement says either party may kill the deal if it's not completed by Aug. 8, John reports for Pro — and the prospects now appear grim.
— Sinclair's last stand: "Sinclair Broadcast Group's top lawyer made a last-ditch effort to salvage his company's $3.9 billion deal for Tribune Media, including via a phone call with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, according to a disclosure filing posted tonight,” John reports for Pro. “Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber emailed [Pai] Tuesday afternoon, writing ‘you appear to have been unwilling to discuss this matter for the past several months.’ A call would be ‘appropriate and hopefully useful,’ Faber said. Emails confirm they spoke Tuesday night.”
— Merger critics urge Tribune to stand down: In a letter sent to Tribune Media’s board of directors, a group of public interest and advocacy group leaders urged the company to pack up shop. "We believe that the only reasonable and prudent action under your fiduciary duty as Tribune directors is to abandon the proposed sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group and focus entirely on the responsible management of your company,” wrote the group, which included Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman, former FCC official and Georgetown Law fellow Gigi Sohn, Institute for Public Representation Counselor Andrew Schwartzman and Sports Fans Coalition Executive Director Brian Hess.
— Sinclair rivals, rejoice! “After the Federal Communications Commission’s likely death blow to Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s $3.9 billion proposed merger with Tribune Media, there is at least one group of clear winners: rival conservative TV news outlets,” POLITICO’s Jason Schwartz reports. That would be Newsmax and Fox News.
— Federal court moves to hasten AT&T appeal: The D.C. Circuit Court approved an expedited timeline for written arguments to be filed in the government’s appeal of AT&T’s merger with Time Warner, Steven reports for Pro. Under a request from the DOJ, briefs in the case will be due by Oct. 18, with the dates for oral arguments and a decision on which judges will be assigned to the case to be set at a later date.
A message from Ericsson: 5G will accelerate innovation and provide transformative use cases across multiple global sectors. It will also bring new security challenges with broader attack surfaces, more devices and increased traffic loads. We must have networks that are trustworthy, resilient, and secure by design – all on day one. Learn more.
CONTRACTING BLOWBACK CONTINUES — The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a Texas nonprofit group that aids migrants, has spurned a $250,000 donation from Salesforce — one of a number of tech companies facing blowback over contracts with the U.S. government. "Pledging us a small portion of the money you make from CBP contracts will not distract us from your continuing support of this agency," Jonathan Ryan, the group’s executive director, wrote to Salesforce in an email obtained by POLITICO.
— Protests on the horizon: According to Fight for the Future representative Evan Greer, a series of petitions from advocacy groups like Color of Change, Free Press, the Center for Media Justice and others calling on tech companies to end their government contracts now have over 250,000 signatures. And on July 26 the groups are planning to deliver those signed petitions and protest outside Salesforce headquarters in San Francisco as well as corporate offices for Microsoft, another company whose contracting has come under scrutiny.
PLEDGE SEASON — At an event touting the White House’s new "Pledge to America's Workers” initiative, companies vowed to offer apprenticeships and skills training to a total of 3.8 million American students and workers over the next five years. Of the tech and telecom companies in attendance, IBM pledged 100,000 opportunities, the Internet Association pledged 30,000, Fox | 3,540,655 |
Adam Driver and John David Washington in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (Focus Features)
The Motion Picture Academy suffers from radicalization and confirmation bias.
The Oscars, a reliable source for mockery, weren’t always a fit topic for serious film criticism. But now the Oscars compel political interest because of the recent culture divide that has also changed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences itself, turning the 91-year-old organization into a social-justice institution. The awards no longer have anything to do with quality — or art — but they do show us what Hollywood thinks of itself. It reveals Hollywood’s political egotism despite the film industry’s constant, dishonest promotional hype.
How have the Oscars changed in the nearly 30 years since Spike Lee made Do the Right Thing, his only good film, and his dumbest, BlacKkKlansman? The latter has just given Lee his first Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director — honors that fans and pundits felt were denied to him because Do the Right Thing, a folkloric screed about urban racism, was considered “too young, too black, too strong” for the Academy’s formerly hidebound traditional liberalism. (In 1989, the Academy preferred the benign race homily of Driving Miss Daisy.)
This year, Lee gets in the running for Best Activist not because BlacKkKlansman is any good, but simply because it represents the first time Lee’s on- and off-screen politics have been in sync with the mainstream media and post-Obama Hollywood. Before BlacKkKlansman, Lee played the role of querulous, peripatetic hustler; his rude, antagonistic shtick (which became a clue to his insecurities and an occasion to stoke white guilt) was always considered too black, too petulant.
Remember how, back in ’89, two New York Magazine writers (a political columnist and a film reviewer) alarmed readers, warning that Do the Right Thing would cause riots? Now, thanks to BlacKkKlansman’s tacked-on agit-prop about Charlottesville and a silly, last-minute jibe at President Trump, the film industry — like the liberal media — has convinced itself to approve the film. #Resistance encourages riots.
No one can honestly say they enjoyed the incoherent, rabble-rousing BlacKkKlansman (and few can say they actually bothered to see it). But pretending that it’s good art — a credible reflection of human truths — is sheer madness. As Boots Riley, director-writer of the more daring and inventive racial satire Sorry to Bother You, has pointed out, Lee dangerously screws up the film’s social and political facts. BlacKkKlansman’s story about Ron Stallworth, author of the self-serving memoir the film is based on, recounting his days on the Colorado Springs police force and exposing the local Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, ignores the political complexity of the protagonist’s race-traitor tactics. (Lee’s screenplay adaptation for the by-any-means-necessary autobiography is also Oscar-nominated). Lee’s sophomoric politics are not so offensive as his falsehoods — the misrepresentations of history, of cultural thought, and of human nature. This personal dishonesty makes his at-long-last Hollywood endorsement an embarrassment.
BlacKkKlansman was made for white liberals (white liberal critics are the demographic that loves the film most; regular moviegoers don’t want the stress). Its cynical, jumbled narrative appeals to their self-congratulatory politics in every way — even including Lee’s whitewash emphasis on Stallworth’s white-Jewish partner who actually infiltrated the Klan. (So BlacKkKlansman is a white-savior movie after all.)
The Oscars’ new white-savior program is the result of former Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs’s decision to alter the race and gender membership; she served as the Oscars’ Quota Queen, following the #OscarSoWhite campaign. Lee’s race-based nominations may be the Academy’s way of repenting for past neglect. But the film’s simplistic political bias (“a leap into reality,” raved The Nation) gives a black eye to the Academy’s history of humane liberalism, typified by nominations for such landmarks as Pinky, Song of the South, In the Heat of the Night, and Glory that affirmed mankind’s potential.
Readers should understand that the media use the Oscars to reinforce the delusion that Hollywood is a meritocracy. The Academy’s recent radicalization | 3,540,656 |
Protective Sealing Bands
Some things that feature the use of corn products are so bizarre they almost make you do a double take. I was opening a fresh can of oatmeal when I noticed the safety seal banding the lid had some writing on it. Sure enough, it proclaimed it was manufactured from corn. It felt exactly like plastic. And this, friends, is one of the properties of corn's simple sugar called dextrose. When extracted and separated, its starchy compounds can be used in myriad forms, including plastic-like products. In this oatmeal's case, it makes virtually the entire container biodegradable.
Gypsum Drywall
We all know corn contains a wicked amount of starch; we know this because there is such a thing as cornstarch, and its use is to gelatinize and thicken things such as sauces and gravies. But in the non-food world, starches often times are used in a completely different way. In the instance of gypsum drywall -- and you know what I'm talking about if you've ever helped build a room add-on or a house -- cornstarch is used in chelation, where its properties help prevent the formation of unwanted molds on the finished board. So, in theory, you probably could take a bite out of drywall, but I wouldn't suggest it.
Varnish
So ya wanna make something out of wood. Well good for you. But, if you want it to last, it might not be a bad idea to protect it with some kind of wash. How about varnish? Sounds good. Oh, and just in case you were thinking of drinking it (ya know, cuz the fumes get you all funky in the head) at least one ingredient is made from corn. It'll still kill you... but I just thought you should know. Anyway, the chemical in the varnish derived from modified corn oil is called alkyd, and it's responsible for that lustrous film varnish leaves behind. Pretty!
Spark Plugs
Spark plugs, in their most basic sense, are made from metal and ceramic. So how the heck does corn fit into this? Well, if you shut up, I'll tell you. You see, it's all in the ceramics -- the molded crystalline product that is very resistant to high temperatures, such as those in your engine. They also tend to withstand the caustic properties of certain acidic solvents, which is also good since your engine is pretty rife with that stuff, too. As it turns out, when one of the many crystalline structures of cornstarch is heated, it hardens and acts as a type of insulator. And now you know.
Adhesives
Ever wonder how you're able to lick glue on things like envelopes and most stamps? Corn. That's right, were it not for the gelling and sticky nature of the starch (here we go with that again) in corn, everyone's mail would arrive already open. Rim shot. Anyway, the starch reacts with moisture (spit) and turns gluey, literally. Then, as it dries, the bond holds things together. But it's not just this type of corn-based adhesive that gets used a lot. Nope, there's a thing called nitrocellulose glue. This stuff, as it turns out, is pretty nasty thanks in large part to the fact that it's created by, "nitrating cellulose (plant fibers) through exposure to nitric acid or another powerful nitrating agent." Oohhhh, that's good nitric!
Toothpaste
Should it really come as any surprise, after reading what you've just read, that there's corn in toothpaste? No, it really shouldn't. But this time the little corny surprise is hidden deep within the paste's sweeteners. Can you imagine toothpaste without some kind of saccharine sugariness to it? It would, literally, taste like soapy minerals. That would make my kids want to brush even less than they already do! In most cases, the sweetness is called sorbitol and is derived from the reduction of corn's glucose. This ingredient, however tasty, also works as a laxative. So, as substitute sweeteners go, it's best you don't eat the Crest that's laden with it.
Aspirin
Acetylsalicylic acid. That, kids, is the scientific name for good old Aspirin. But what could corn possibly have to do with America's favorite pain reliever? Well, it's really not just Aspirin that has it. In fact, not even all Aspirin pills have it, because the corn is found in the coating that helps us humans gulp it down. Its really hard to pronounce name is Cellulose acetate phthalate, | 3,540,657 |
It's a wonderful time of year, the air is crisp, the leaves are changing colour and their is a twinkle of frost in the air. Christmas is on peoples minds and curling up in front of a lovely warm fire at the end of a long day with a hot chocolate is heavenly. It's the most wonderful time of the year.
Unless you are a dog.
This time of year is horrific for most dogs. Social Media has thankfully made people more and more aware of just how terrible fireworks are for the poor defenseless dogs that have to endure it. Not just on one day, but for weeks from the end of October until the beginning of January.
Fireworks used to just be for a weekend, for Bonfire night, 5th November. However shops are now selling fireworks from September and anyone can buy them and set them off whenever and wherever they like. Which seems ridiculous to us.
So, until the laws are changed and fireworks are only available at organised displays, we have compiled a comprehensive list of the top things you can try to calm your dog during this firework season.
1 - Exercise
This is a simple and maybe obvious one, but it is one that works quite well. If your dog has anxiety from fireworks, it has been proven in humans as well that exercise helps reduce anxiety. Take your dog for a huge walk during the light of day, play fetch, play mind stimulating games like hide and seek and finding treats. Spend a solid few hours really tiring your dog out and hopefully, this should help to take the edge off their anxiety during the fireworks.
2 - Behave Normally
Again, another simple one but when combined with other ideas does help is just being normal. If your dog has clambered under a cupboard, just leave them. Just continue cooking tea, watching TV or anything else you were doing. I'm not saying ignore your dog, give them a fuss, lots of love and cuddles, but also keep a good routine and try not to do much out of the normal order of things.
3 - Try to mask the sounds
Turn on the TV loud, or the radio. Close the curtains, make sure all windows are closed. If you have a room in the middle of the house then sit in there with the dog. Try to reduce the sound as much as possible. You could even create a hiding place for your dog with lots of blankets, maybe in a box and with something that smells of you, a piece of clothing etc.
4 - Thunder jackets/wraps
This is one that has worked for a lot of dogs. A thunder jacket is an inexpensive wrap that basically holds your dog tight. The pressure around the body is designed to reduce the anxiety. The alternative is to make your own, you can use a scarf and create your own if you need one quickly. Their are lots of tutorials online. Of you can use this one here.
5 - Calmers
There are a lot of calmers on the market for dogs, however we are not going to recommend any, as every dog is different. It is trial and error and maybe even going on recommendations from friends or family. There are many different forms from long term calmers that you need to start a month before, to instant calmers that you give them on the day. You can even get plug in and spray calmers. You need to research all of the different types.
6 - Run Away
If you drive, and you know there is going to be a display local to you, then the best thing to do is to pop them in the car and head for the hills. Sometimes avoidance is just the best answer. Check the start and finish times of the display and go and sit in your car with your dog away from it all. Somewhere rural where there are no fireworks.
7 - Feed Early
Most dogs will not eat when they are distressed, so ensure that they have had a good meal well before the fireworks are due to start. Maybe even feed them in the mornings for a while. If they are anxious then it won't help if they are hungry too. If they have been fed in the morning then it may also make them more interested in treats, which brings us to...
8 - Treats and Positivity
This won't work for all dogs as some won't eat treats or play when they are distressed. However some dogs will do anything for a tennis ball or a Kong filled with peanut butter. There are lots of ways that treats can work, don't just hand feed your dog treats, get imaginative. Hide your dogs favourite treats around the house, in their bed etc. Fill a Kong or something similar with peanut butter, pate or even cream cheese as a way to tempt your dog to play/eat it as this will help them to be distracted and the licking actually can help to reduce anxiety.
9 - Sed | 3,540,658 |
Subsets and Splits